Centre researcher Alex Wu wins best paper award at ASPS 2019
Centre researcher Dr Alex Wu, have been awarded the 2019 Functional Plant Biology Best paper award at the Australian Society of Plant Scientists Conference 2019 (ASPS2019), held in Melboune from the 26-29 of November.
His paper Simulating daily field crop canopy photosynthesis: an integrated paper software package was published in Functional Plant Biology in 2018. The paper shows the online application he and his co-authors developed to predict how crop growth is affected by photosynthetic changes at the molecular, cellular or leaf level of plants.
Dr Alex Wu showing the new crop simulation software
“Enhancing photosynthesis has the potential to increase crop yields, but the link between photosynthesis and crop productivity is not straightforward because it crosses multiple scales of biological organisation. We created modelling tools that help us navigate through these complexities to identify targets that have the greatest impact on crop yield,” Alex says.
This online “crystal ball” of crop growth, a small part of the cross-scale model, is designed to show researchers what would happen to a crop canopy with changes in photosynthesis under variable environmental and canopy conditions such as radiation, temperature, levels of CO2, canopy size and amount of nitrogen in leaves.
The Diurnal Canopy Photosynthesis Simulator (DCaPS) online application, calculates diurnal (period from sunrise to sunset) canopy CO2 assimilation and daily biomass increment for a crop under well-watered conditions. DCaPS is now publicly available at www.dcaps.net.au.
Read the full paper here: publish.csiro.au/fp/FP17225 and the associated media release entitled “Crop simulation software helps to find better crops” here
Congratulations, Alex!