Australia
April 9, 2023
The Australian Pulse Conference was held from the 21st – 23rd March 2023 in Toowoomba, Queensland. Waite was well-represented at the conference, with a number of researchers presenting from both SARDI and the University of Adelaide.
Image provided by Simon Michelmore
PhD candidate, Simon Michelmore, was awarded Best Student Poster. Hear from Simon, who shares an overview of the conference and his research below.
The Australian Pulse Conference, organised by the newly established Pulse Grains Society of Australia Inc., is a unique multi-disciplinary community of researchers, crop breeders, processors, manufacturers and more. The resulting diversity of topics covered at the conference fosters new collaborations and forces us all to think outside of our niches.
Attending the Australian Pulse Conference in Toowoomba was a great opportunity to re-connect with pulse researchers from interstate and international institutions, many of whom I hadn’t seen in person since the pre-covid era. It was wonderful to be able to present some of my PhD results and to see the excellent research happening across the country.
I was stoked to take home the prize for Best Student Poster for my poster titled “Plant architecture and yield potential of novel herbicide tolerant pulses”. My poster showcases some of the key results so far from my PhD project including how a gene encoding the target site of certain synthetic auxin herbicides is essential for hormonal cross-talk to regulate shoot branching, and how herbicide tolerance mutations have the potential to substantially increase grain yields. My PhD project is generously supported by a GRDC Grains Research Scholarship and is just scratching the surface of the potential to improve plant architecture for more productive and sustainable crops.
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