Understanding and mitigating hyperhydricity in Agave tissue culture

(ARC Industry Fellowship project awarded to Dr. Aaron Phillips)

Project Summary:

Agave is a versatile crop with exceptional potential to support a biomass-based bioeconomy in Australia. Compared with sugarcane and corn – the worlds primary biofuel feedstocks – Agave can yield higher biofuel output while avoiding competition with food production. Building a sustainable Agave industry will require the continual propagation of millions of plants. Although seed-based propagation is possible, unpredictable flowering in most Agave species makes seed supply unreliable.

Tissue culture (TC) offers an alternative means of large-scale propagation, but it remains time-consuming, labour-intensive, and costly. A major bottleneck in TC production is hyperhydricity – a physiological disorder that results in brittle, translucent, and malformed plantlets with poor acclimation success. This disorder can affect more than 70% of Agave clones, severely reducing propagation efficiency.

This ARC-funded PhD project will investigate the underlying drivers of hyperhydricity in Agave and develop practical strategies to mitigate its impact on plant production. As a PhD student, you will work closely with industry partners under the ARC Industry Fellowship program, gaining experience in tissue culture, plant physiology, biochemistry, and bioinformatics while contributing to the establishment of a resilient Agave industry for arid Australia.

Supervisor(s):

Prof. Rachel Burton, Dr. Aaron Phillips