Construction of the cutting edge Roseworthy Plant Breeding Centre is well underway, providing a new hub for Australian Grain Technologies to deliver superior genetics for use by Australian farmers.
Home to state of the art greenhouse, breeding and lab facilities, office and meeting rooms, the breeding centre will increase the capacity of AGT to expand breeding programs across a range of crop types and improve leading field crop varieties.
AGT chief executive officer Haydn Kuchel said great breeding required good germplasm, access to cutting edge technology and a team of skilled people to pull it all together.
“We have been amazingly blessed at AGT to have a world class team working for Australian farmers and our new Roseworthy based Southern Crop Breeding Centre will give us the ability to enhance our existing plant breeding efforts, providing even greater benefit to farmers into the future,” he said.
“Farmers support us by paying royalties on the varieties that they grow, and we are committed to investing back into developing improved varieties for them.”
AGT has outgrown its previous location a University of Adelaide’s Roseworthy campus, and now requires greater space and enhanced facilities.
Although the new site will be located off-campus, AGT will continue to maintain strong links to the university through joint research, education and Roseworthy campus-based plant breeding trials.
The new Roseworthy Plant Breeding Centre is due to be completed early next year and will be the result of more than $15 million of investment by AGT.
This investment follows other strategic infrastructure improvements made recently by AGT at its three other plant breeding centres in Northam, WA, Wagga Wagga, NSW and Narrabri, NSW.
