THE GRAINS Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) has pulled off a coup in attracting a home-grown research leader back to Australia to take up a role with the organisation.
The GRDC announced globally respected researcher Peter Carberry, who is currently the director general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in India would return to Australia to take up a role with the GRDC as its general manager of applied research and development, replacing Brondwen McLean.
He will be based at the GRDC's Toowoomba office, starting in May this year.
In announcing the appointment, GRDC managing director Steve Jefferies said Dr Carberry would bring to the GRDC a wealth of expertise and experience.
"Peter is highly recognised internationally as a research leader, and his specific expertise is in crop physiology, the development and application of farming systems simulation models, and the use of information systems in agriculture," Dr Jefferies said.
"He was a key developer of the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) modelling framework, which is still used as a research tool today in many of GRDC's agronomy-related investments and by growers and advisers through decision support tools such as Yield Prophet®."
ICRISAT, Dr Carberry's former employer, is a major R&D organisation, featuring a genebank that houses more than 41,000 sorghum lines, 20,000 chickpea lines and 15,000 peanut lines.
It has been of particular importance to the Australian grains industry through its pulse genetic resources, providing more than 5000 chickpea lines to Australia.
Dr Carberry was raised on a cropping farm near Narrabri in north west New South Wales and completed a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture at the University of Sydney.