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Plant Accelerator at Waite is Funded

I am pleased to be able to announce that the application to NCRIS for funding for a Plant Accelerator facility has been successful. The Hon Julie Bishop, MP, Federal Minister of Education, Science and Training announced yesterday that a total of $15 million will be given to this proposal of which $10 million will come to the Waite Campus. This has been matched by a further $10 million from the South Australian Government in an announcement, also made yesterday, by the Hon Karlene Maywald, MP, the South Australian Minister for Science and Information Economy. The Plant Accelerator will provide state-of-the-art glasshouses on the Waite Campus and will include a major plant phenomics facility that will allow many attributes of plant growth and performance to be measured continuously and non-destructively. This will be a national facility but will obviously have major beneficial consequences for plant scientists in the School.

I would like to thank Mark Tester and Geoff Fincher, who have spearheaded this initiative, for their incredibly hard work and their vision in recognising the need for, and benefits of, such a facility. Like all major funding proposals, it has taken a huge effort to get to this point and they deserve all plaudits for their achievement. This success demonstrates the confidence that both Federal and State governments have in the research carried out at the Waite and we should be justly proud of Mark and Geoff for bringing further recognition of our strength in all aspects of plant sciences.

An appropriate celebration of this success will be held shortly.

Roger Leigh