Australian Plant Phenomics Facility Site Visit

One of the world’s most sophisticated plant research facilities, set to make huge advances in international agricultural sustainability and deliver significant benefits to Australia’s agriculture and horticulture industries, opened in Adelaide on Thursday 28 January 2010.

Based at the University of Adelaide’s Waite Campus, the $30 million facility known as The Plant Accelerator is the largest and most advanced public facility of its type in the world.

The “super greenhouse” features a series of 50 high-tech glasshouses and laboratories housing more than 1km of conveyor systems that deliver plants automatically to state-of-the-art imaging, robotic and computing equipment.

The Plant Accelerator is the national headquarters of the Australian Plant Phenomics Facility and has been jointly funded by the Commonwealth, the SA Government and the University of Adelaide under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and the Education Investment Fund.