GRDC investment is supporting students who are being trained for careers across the grains industry in a new kind of training centre

A key focus for the research group is to drive up wheat yields now that Green Revolution genetics have plateaued out. For GRDC research scholar Rebeccah Tyrrell that means improving wheat’s energy use efficiency. Photo: Nicole Baxter/GRDC

To solve evermore complex food production challenges, agricultural scientists found it necessary to create an entirely new class of capabilities.

Only too recently, these capabilities were considered the domain of science fiction – autonomous robots, for example, or light-based diagnostic devices that bear an uncanny resemblance to a Star Trek tricorder.

The manner in which agricultural science has had to reinvent itself, however, had an additional impact. It generated an impetus to innovate the way the next generation of agricultural scientists are trained. This is driven by a need to better expose students to interdisciplinary approaches to problem solving and to the integrated nature of the agricultural research and development pipelines.

Without this innovation, students risked becoming stuck within restrictive disciplinary silos and isolated from the guts of the grains industry – the farms, the breeding companies, the machinery manufacturers.

One example of this type of educational innovation is the restructured training program created by Professor Barry Pogson of the Australian National University (ANU).

Called the Australian Research Council (ARC) Training Centre for Accelerated Future Crops Development (see the breakout box), it was established in 2021 with funds received from the ARC ($5 million) that were matched by industry and the university.

Among the students making their way through this novel training program is GRDC scholar Rebeccah Tyrrell, who started her graduate PhD training in 2024. The primary site for Ms Tyrrell’s work (and where she is enrolled) is the Pogson Group at ANU, where she is supervised by Dr Marten Moore.

The Project

A key focus within the Pogson Group is creating a new basis for driving up wheat yields now that Green Revolution genetics have plateaued out.

This endeavour targets the plant’s energy production system, namely photosynthesis (that produces energy in the form of carbohydrates) and respiration (that uses the carbs to grow, flower and set seed).

For Ms Tyrrell, this goal takes the form of a project that targets key steps within respiration, with the goal of improving wheat’s energy use efficiency.

She explains that the project draws on data produced through a prior GRDC investment. It allowed pre-breeders to run yield-related field trials while capturing data related to respiratory metabolism and metabolites (known as a ‘metabolomics’ analysis).

“The GRDC study found that variations in certain key steps in respiratory biochemistry correlated with variation in yields,” Ms Tyrrell says. “We wanted to explore these steps more closely. To that end, I am working with the genes that control these biochemical steps.”

Her aim is to alter the genes’ level of expression – either increase or decrease it –  to quantify the effect on the plant’s energy  use efficiency and, ultimately, on yield.

The technology she is using is not trivial. On one hand, she plans to transform the wheat genome (within a cell culture system) in order to over-express the targeted genes. On the other, she plans to reduce expression using RNA silencing technology (CRISPR-Cas9).

From these cell systems, she can then regenerate plants. The plan is to analyse these modified plants in the glasshouse and then in field trials by measuring respiration rates, biomass and yield.

Six months into this project, Ms Tyrrell has made the DNA constructs she needs to over-express and reduce expression of the targeted genes. She has also mastered the art of taking leaf tissue and making ‘protoplasts’ – plant cells that lack a cell wall. Protoplasts can be grown in dishes and allow DNA constructs to be moved into the cell.

Given the nature of the restructured training program, however, she does not work in isolation and is not restricted to a molecular biology laboratory. On the contrary, as part of her training, the new centre runs a series of activities (conferences, meetings, retreats) so that all the students in the program can form a network that shares knowledge, contacts and support. These links will persist when the students segue to careers in agriculture and is intended to support greater efficiency in solving problems.

Their expertise is also broadened through short courses that provide hands-on experience and accreditations in industry-relevant skills. For instance, Ms Tyrrell has already completed a short course on how to:

• run field trials;
• manage GM stewardship;
• understand the regulatory landscape of new genetic technologies; and
• undertake responsible research and inclusive innovation.

The centre will also provide industry placements so the students can sample  the breadth of career opportunities within agriculture.

Additionally, Ms Tyrrell’s project aligns with the objectives of the breeding company, InterGrain, which is a partner in this project.

“For a molecular biologist – one who works at the level of understanding individual genes – it is a whole different game when I get to work with a company like InterGrain,” Ms Tyrrell says.

Seeing how breeding companies operate is an eye-opener. Knowing that they can accelerate the transition from my experiments with protoplasts to field trials also incentivises me. I can see the bigger picture and then I understand the kind of impact my work could have.

Concurrently, colleagues working on the yield challenge are developing AI-based models that integrate data from all the ‘-omics’ (genomics, phenomics, metabolomics). Their goal is to acquire the ability to predict the genes that determine yield under various growing conditions.

The gene-related work undertaken by Ms Tyrrell will help fill knowledge gaps and build this new technology’s capabilities. And, once again, this capability is so advanced that it resembles science fiction.

More information: Rebeccah Tyrrell,  rebeccah.tyrrell@anu.edu.au