The latest recipients of APPN Postgraduate Internship Awards will each spend time at APPN facilities working alongside our experts and using our phenotyping infrastructure to advance their studies.
La Trobe University PhD candidate Louise Walker will join our Adelaide team at The Plant Accelerator® to advance her research into how heat and water stress affect grain fill and final grain composition in faba beans (Vicia faba).
Louise will be measuring faba bean grain fill under both mild and prolonged heat and water stress (separately and in combination) to characterise how pod set, C and N distribution and final grain composition are affected by abiotic stress.
A greenhouse at The Plant Accelerator® will be used to grow her plants through their vegetative stage, before they are transferred to the Heat & Drought Twin Chambers so pod set and grain fill can be completed under controlled conditions with frequent measurements of pot weight, controlled water application and manual assessments. Leaf nitrogen will be estimated using a SPAD meter.
Faba bean is an important leguminous crop for many grain growers in Australia. Improving knowledge of its response to abiotic stress will help support the development of climate-resilient varieties with improved yield, seed quality and nitrogen fixation for the benefit subsequent cereal rotations.
Russell Woodford from Monash University will travel to our Canberra Node at ANU to investigate the photosynthetic regulatory pathways that enable C4 plants to respond to fluctuating light in the environment. He will study wild type and genetically modified Setaria viridis (green foxtail millet) to determine what components of electron transport machinery are critical for growth and photosynthesis in C4 plants.
The project will focus on the variable light conditions found in the natural environment, due to shading from tree cover or passing clouds for example, rather than the ideal steady light conditions of most lab studies. These realistic conditions have been studied for C3 photosynthesis but are not well understood for the C4 pathway.
Better understanding of these processes under realistic conditions will help to identify molecular targets for developing crops with improved photosynthetic efficiency and resilience.
Russell’s research will use the Conviron growth cabinets with their LED lighting to provide a stable growing environment and managed light fluctuations. He will also use the node’s Phenospex F600 scanner to measure plant growth over the experiment and monitor changes in chlorophyll content, nitrogen content, plant health and senescence.
A Walz monitoring PAM will provide real-time data on photosynthetic responses to light fluctuations and a LICOR Porometer/Fluorometer will be used to analyse stomatal conductance and leaf temperature.
Could you use an APPN Postgraduate Internship Award?
The APPN Postgraduate Internship Awards (PIA) program provides postgraduate students with up to $10,000 worth of access to our sophisticated plant phenomics infrastructure – as well as a valuable opportunity to work alongside APPN staff to learn more about the potential applications and benefits of our phenotyping technologies.
Internships are awarded twice per year, with applications closing on 30 May and 30 November.
Applicant can choose to work APPN team across our network and PIA awards may include assistance with travel and accommodation costs if required.
Postgraduate students at any Australian university are encouraged to learn more, consult with their supervisors and the APPN team, and submit an application.
See our website for more details.
APPN now encompasses nine Nodes located across Australia’s mainland states and internship opportunities at our new Nodes will be publicised as they become available.
