Australian Plant Phenomics Facility

The Australian Plant Phenomics Facility is a distributed national research infrastructure delivering world-leading plant phenomics technologies to support crop research and development.

We enable the plant science that will deliver more secure and healthier food, new plant-based pharmaceuticals, innovative fibres and more resilient, sustainable and profitable agriculture.

In order to isolate and demonstrate specific traits, researchers must be able to grow test plants under controlled conditions then accurately obtain and compare data on growth, development, environmental responses, yields and more. Plant phenomics uses imaging technologies to measure selected characteristics digitally, resulting in more data, more accuracy, and more consistency in less time. This makes it much easier to identify and genetically improve the target trait.

The APPF brings together the infrastructure, technologies, services, tools, innovations and expertise to make this growth, assessment and analysis possible.

Our infrastructure includes field sites, glasshouses, controlled environment rooms and growth chambers, multispectral imaging systems, X-ray CT scanning, drone platforms and mobile field units with onboard imaging and data capture. Our team also includes talented technology innovators, data architects and computer scientists.

We are an open access facility working with plant scientists, commercial and academic research institutions, and partner organisations from Australia and around the world to address complex problems in plant and agricultural sciences.