Unlocking crop epigenomics to uncover and engineer hidden diversity (2025-2027)
Abstract
Considering the immense pressure to meet global food demand, this project aims to explore new avenues to boost the production of Australia's most important crops. We aim to utilise revolutionary new technology to understand how hidden factors beyond the sequence of genes could be harnessed for crop improvement across generations and environments. Expected outcomes of the project include world-first deep insight into the fundamental biology of epigenomics in sorghum, barley and wheat and development of novel technological approaches to high-throughput DNA methylation profiling and genome engineering. Foreseeable benefits include knowledge and technological capacity to fine-tune underexploited yield components for improved grains production.
