Cooler leaves: optimising protective heat release by plants

This project aims to understand how plants protect themselves from high light stress to produce more resilient and productive crops. The project expects to provide new knowledge about the fundamental structural and molecular means by which plants regulate stress responses through the examination of a newly discovered protein that controls protective heat release in grasses, some of the most resilient plants. Expected outcomes include a novel, non-genetically modified route for increasing plant resilience by enabling faster and more precise stress response and recovery. This should produce significant benefits, including improved productivity of major Australian crops and enhanced agricultural adaptation to changing climate conditions.