Seed Biology

There are complex constraints and threats to on-farm production and profitability that can be addressed through the development of seeds with optimised and desirable traits.

Past breeding strategies had a narrow focus solely on yield traits, such as seed size, mass and number, because producers saw these as a route to increased profit. However, this focus has resulted in decreased nutritional quality. The future of food will instead see nutritional traits driving breeding strategies and the delivery of high-quality products.

The challenge

This domain focuses on two major research challenges:

  • bioengineering cereal and legume seeds and the molecular processes contributing to their development to enhance seed production, nutrition and agronomic qualities, to deliver high nutritional products for local and export markets.
  • enhancing connectivity between the traditionally disparate fields of agriculture, food processing and nutrition/health.

Our mission

To shift paradigms and utilise plant biology to engineer ‘fit-for-purpose’, hardier seeds and plants that deliver higher yields to best serve human nutritional needs and processing attributes.

Our research initiatives

ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space

P4S is an international research consortium building novel solutions for long term space habitation and on Earch rth sustainability. With the goal of enabling humans to survive and thrive in space, four missions guide the P4S research effort:

  1. complete nutrition plant-based foods
  2. zero-waste plants optimised for controlled environments
  3. on-demand bioresources production
  4. future-ready workforce and society

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