Plant Growth and Development: Traits and Mechanisms

The production of sufficient safe and nutritious food has always been the main foundation of stable and equitable societies. As plants provide the main source of our nutrition, and that of our domesticated animals, it follows that we are deeply dependent upon our capabilities to domesticate and utilise plants for food.

Furthermore, most of our fossil energy reserves, and a large diversity of industrial products, are ultimately derived from plants.

The compounded challenges of increased population pressures, rapid loss of biodiversity and predicted global climate change all threaten our ability to produce food, feed and energy to maintain and extend human society. Our future capacity to develop improved and novel crops to meet these challenges is dependent upon a far deeper understanding of plant function, the genetic variation underlying important crop traits such as yield, and our ability to rapidly develop the next generation of crop plants.

This research Programme integrates research that aims to understand plant productivity at a molecular level with research in increasing the sustainable productivity of crop plants. We believe that this novel combination of expertise will rapidly generate the knowledge and resources needed to produce the next generations of crop plants.

Our research themes

Reproduction

Plant productivity is critically dependent upon the timing of flower initiation during the growing season, as this establishes the period during which plants can harvest and store light energy in optimal growing conditions. It is also dependent upon the fertility of the plant, which establishes the final yield of seeds.

Plant Architecture

Research in this theme aims to understand how different cells and organs in plants arise from meristematic precursors and form the mature structures of plants such as flowers, leaves, roots and seeds. These organs are the basis of crop plant productivity, and by understanding how they are formed in model species and crops we are building the foundations for long term improvement of crop plant productivity. Work in this theme encompasses a broad range of cell types, tissues and organs and scientific approaches that reflect the importance of diverse plant components to agriculture and industry.

Biomass and Yield

A mesh of finite elements represents a leaf as a continuous sheet in 3D The mechanisms determining the final size and shape of plants, plant organs and plant cells are of compelling interest biologically and are also of great importance in determining crop plant yield. Work in this theme integrates research on discovering new genes controling organ size in Arabidopsis, on the control of cell wall formation, the definition of genetic varation and QTL underlying yield variation in wheat, and the application of knowledge of growth control pathways to increasing organ and seed size in Brassicas. Research in this theme is guided by the establishment of quantitative models describing growth at the cellular and organ level.

Predictive Plant Biology and Breeding

Genome sequencing and computational genomics establish the foundations for comprehensive understanding of biological processes in plants. Knowledge of the genome sequences of our major crop plants, and the capability to use this knowledge for crop plant improvement, will for the first time establish a predictive power to plant breeding and gene discovery in crops. The outcomes of research in this field include genome sequence data and computational approaches that facilitate gene isolation, improve our understanding of hybrid vigour and the consequences of polyploidy, and reveal the role of evolution and domestication in shaping plant genomes.