Investment

Barley breeders face a constant challenge in developing new varieties that meet growing market needs and productivity requirements in a constantly changing environment. Modern cereal breeding for crop improvement, relies on a combination of genotypic and phenotypic data to identify important genomic regions that drive crop performance. Access to high quality genotypic and phenotypic data is therefore critical for Australian barley researchers and breeders to drive the rate of genetic gain in barley improvement. This GRDC investment is looking to assist the launch of the OzBarley Genotype-to-Phenotype (G2P) data asset [in 2024], add further value to the OzBarley platform via inclusion of a global barley landrace panel and associated genotype data, and support field trials of the 223 elite barley panel that will help promote the platform by facilitating access for the generation of additional phenotypic data by Australian barley researchers.

About the platform: The OzBarley G2P data platform is built on a foundation of 223 elite barley varieties and will provide the basis for in silico research and gene discovery. It will reduce the barrier to entry for future barley funding applications, since the generation and genotyping of a population, a large financial and time commitment, is already solved and scientists can focus on studying their trait of interest. OzBarley will serve as a foundation for researchers to grow the data asset in the future by contributing additional data sets following FAIR data principals and standards set out within the OzBarley project.

The data platform will launch initially with: