UWA’s Plant Growth Facility is more than just a practical growing site for researchers to carry out experiments. It’s a hothouse for turning the seeds of bright ideas into reality.

In the sprawling nest of greenhouses on the eastern side of UWA’s Crawley campus, a diverse collection of plants sits in various stages of growth.

Crops, seedlings, succulents, perennials, botanicals and various other forms of flora are cultivated under tightly controlled conditions, as researchers study everything from soil biology to noxious weed control and mine site rehabilitation.

At any one time we can have a plant disease trial going on, plant viruses being investigated by a PhD student, a researcher looking at faba beans; one looking at canola crop yields and someone else looking at the biological processes taking place in soil,” says UWA Plant Growth Precinct Manager Robert Creasy.

The facility he manages with colleague Bill Piasini provides a high-quality, functional site for plant experiments, with users able to manipulate light quality, temperature, water, nutrients and soil composition, effectively eliminating the variability found in nature.

As every plant scientist knows only too well, the natural world can be unpredictable and complex, even at the best of times.

We see this all the time,” Mr Creasy says. “I was contacted recently by a researcher who was breeding heat-tolerant crops and all his field crops had been washed out in the New South Wales floods, which was devastating.

The thing about breeding is it could have been that one seed or that one plant that was the culmination of a 10-year research program.

We were able to grow his field crops at the right temperature in our facility, so that he could achieve the quality of seed he was after.”

Crops grown in the Plant Growth Facility

Ideally positioned to tease apart the questions that need answering

The 19 greenhouses, eight phytotrons, (sophisticated greenhouses where plants can be grown under environmental control), 29 plant growth rooms and eight plant growth cabinets at UWA are supported by an autoclave, soil storage areas and sterilisation equipment, ancillary equipment storage spaces and a deionised water production facility.

There are preparation and harvest labs, drying and weighing rooms, with some of the facilities certified for biosecurity activities, such as working with genetically modified plants or quarantined species.

One advantage we have is that our facilities are close to most of the major laboratories and research facilities related to plant research at the University, such as the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, the Centre for Plant Genetics and Breeding and the School of Molecular Sciences,” Mr Creasy says. 

"When you look through the windows, what looks like a simple plant in a glasshouse might be someone’s future career. Ten years of hard work may have gone into getting that plant to exactly where it is right now."

UWA Plant Growth Precinct Manager Robert Creasy

 

That gives our researchers a seamless transition from plant growth environments to more intensive laboratory-based analysis, including everything from detailed chemical composition to molecular analysis.

With the first greenhouse in the precinct dating back to 1941, evolving technology has seen many changes over time.

One of the trends is that the scale has changed – where we used to have 40 pots in a greenhouse, we now have 400 and we’ve adapted into an environment with specific and carefully controlled conditions for researchers to work in,” Mr Creasy says.

Scalability is important. In a place that’s been around this long, we’re constantly adapting. “For example, we’ve introduced mobile benching systems that have provided us with wider walkways and the scale we need in modern science, allowing us to tease apart the questions that need answering.

Producing science that is robust, reliable and reproduceable

The precinct has capacity for a wide range of research projects and is available to all staff and students, while also supporting national and international collaborative research to solve global challenges.

Whether the students or researchers are from agricultural science, botany, plant biology or whichever discipline across the university, or industry, government or the community, our focus is on achieving successful outcomes,” Mr Creasy says.

UWA has great expertise ‘below the ground’, looking at what happens beneath the earth’s surface. It’s a lot harder to research because it’s less visible, but there are more gaps in the science and so it’s a really fertile space to explore.

When you look through the windows, what looks like a simple plant in a glasshouse might be someone’s future career. Ten years of hard work may have gone into getting that plant to exactly where it is right now.

"Biology doesn’t always do what you want it to do and it’s our job to try and limit the risk of adverse outcomes with science that is robust, reliable and reproduceable.”

The overarching focus in 2023 is the pressing need for sustainable global food solutions. The PGF has the capacity to perform experiments at elevated carbon dioxide concentrations to evaluate the impact of global climate change on biological systems.

We’re looking to adapt cropping to almost unimaginable challenges and a lot of the work we do is in the upstream space, providing great opportunities for students to be involved.

"I love what I do here – there’s not many places you can work that are entirely about making ideas into reality. Undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers, all who have ideas that we then make happen,” Mr Creasy says.

“Seeing the PhD students develop into research scientists, that moment when someone understands something and the light bulb goes off, it’s amazing.

“It’s not just my team but the whole University supporting what goes on and all of the workflows here. Everyone, from the cleaners to the repairs guys and the guys who drive the forklift, they’re all important.”

Senior Research Fellow Dr Judith Lichtenzveig (left) and Research Fellow Dr Maria Pazos Navarro (right)

Research Fellow Dr Maria Pazos Navarro

For Spanish-born Research Fellow Dr Maria Pazos Navarro from UWA’s School of Agriculture and Environment, who works on exploiting new technologies to solve agricultural problems, the Plant Growth Facility is like a second home.

“My background is in genetic plant modification – in vitro tissue culture techniques, molecular and cell biology, plant physiology and plant breeding, focusing on legumes,” she says.

“I’m currently working on new highly efficient genetic transformation protocols. I’m testing different types of light to enhance transformation efficiency and I’m on site every week when my experiments are running.

“The beauty of the facility is that it runs all year round – it’s a very supportive environment, and it allows researchers the ability to be entrepreneurial, to branch out and build up their research portfolio.”

Senior Research Fellow Dr Judith Lichtenzveig

Senior Research Fellow Dr Judith Lichtenzveig, also from UWA’s School of Agriculture and Environment, was born in Argentina but completed her higher education in Israel.

“I completed my undergrad in life sciences by the gorgeous Negev desert where I got interested in plants and their adaptation to seasonal changes,” Dr Lichtenzveig says.

“I struggled with genetics so of course decided to do two postgrad degrees in the subject, with the first, my master’s, on the compatibility of different species of climbing cacti.

“My PhD project was on the genetics and epidemiology of chickpea response to a detrimental fungal disease, Ascochyta blight.

“Currently, our team focuses on gene flow between annual species, gene introgressions from wild to cultivated crops, and the effects of temperature and light quality on plant responses against pathogens and on reproductive phenology.

“The Plant Growth Facility is like a little heaven for us – it serves such a large and diverse group of researchers, not only from academia but breeding companies and the Department of Primary Industries and all sorts of national and international organisations.”

For more information contact: [email protected] or +61 8 6488 8549

Read the full issue of the Winter 2023 edition of Uniview [PDF 2.7Mb]. The Uniview accessible [PDF 2.9Mb] version is also available.