Zero-waste plants optimised for controlled environments
Controlled agriculture environments (CEA) provide a unique opportunity to exceed assumed limits in plant performance. P4S are redesigning crops to generate bespoke CEA plant varieties by co-optimising plant traits and growth environments, including:
- Optimisation of day length and nutrition.
- Improving salt tolerance, nutrient and water use efficiency without reducing yield.
- Converting all plant parts to be usable, whether for food or other end-uses.
- Ensuring sustainability by optimising CEA parameters using digital twins.
Plants will be tested at-scale in industry production facilities via P4S partners.
Read more:
From space science to dinner plates: the future of farming indoors
Complete nutrition plant-based foods
P4S aims to generate a small collection of plants that can support complete plant-based nutrition from sugars, proteins, fats, fibres and vitamins.
We use a wide suite of approaches to tailor plant-based food products for consumers with specific digestive, nutritional or psychological needs.
- Smart food structuring to create variety in texture, flavour and aroma.
- Introducing umami flavour to plant foods and using 3D printing to create 'cheese' or striated products resembling meat.
- Testing foods for palatability, digestibility and sensory appeal using cutting-edge biometric analyses to map and predict human responses.
Read more:
Exploring the potential of duckweed (Lemnaceae) in diversifying food systems
Customizable drinks could provide essential nutrients during space missions
On-demand bioresource production
P4S is harnessing our team's deep knowledge of plant processes and genomic technology to create programmable, tuneable plant factories for bioresource production. Applications include the development of:
- Plant-based polymer precursors, pharmaceuticals, and flavours.
- Smart plants already programmed to produce a broad range of required biomolecules, each of which can be triggered by a specific cue (e.g. light, nutrients).
- Sentinel plants with built-in biosensors for monitoring agricultural plant health and harvest readiness.
We take a system-wide approach to the sustainability of biomolecule production, extraction and processing to ensure industry relevance.
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Future-ready workforce and society
We aim to provide an industry-ready translation pipeline integrating and informing outputs across P4S research, including co-design between academia, government, industry, and start-ups to provide major sector uplift.
Our research also includes the exploration of the anticipatory and responsive legal, regulatory, ethical, and psychological frameworks associated with our work.
P4S members contribute to a robust national education and engagement program, with public events, classroom engagements, teacher professional learning and best-practice STEM education research.
Read more:
Expanding frontiers: harnessing plant biology for space exploration and planetary sustainability
Plants in Space: A global education initiative - Hort Journal Australia