Plant Biology Facilities

Glasshouses

There are 18 glass houses on the main university campus providing 591 square metres of bench space where experiments can be conducted under tightly controlled conditions. All glass houses have evaporative cooling and some have heating or shade/thermal screens. Most have deionised water and compressed air. There are areas of PC2 glass house space with evaporative cooling, shade screens and compressed air.

There are two PC2 Phytotron units. These are secure, air-conditioned, light controlled glasshouse spaces. There are an additional five non-secure Phytotron units totalling 52 square metres plus 28 square metres of glasshouse space with the same level of temperature control.

Information About the Plant Growth Facility Database Booking System

University Pheme Login

https://www.pheme.uwa.edu.au/

Apollo Plant Growth Facility Booking System Login

http://grsserv02.grs.uwa.edu.au/Apollo/

Equipment in the Plant Growth Facility

The School has one PC2 walk in plant growth room with artificial light, air conditioning and compressed air, plus 12 controlled environment rooms totaling 36.3 square metres of growing space. These rooms all have controlled lighting and temperature settings, some with humidity control as well. On the main campus there is 257 square metres of shade-house space plus 2056 square metres of in ground growing area covered with bird exclusion netting.

A service building contains balances, ovens, root washing facilities, controlled temperature cabinets, cold room, soil drying rooms, soil pasteurization facilities and other common core equipment. In addition the School has soil storage areas and a deionised water plant.

Molecular Biology

The cross disciplinary applications of Molecular Technology are shared by the School of Plant Biology with two other schools in the faculty. The extensive Molecular Biology facilities can house 15 to 20 people working together at any one time. Students are encouraged to use the collegial environment and access academic staff with international reputation and expertise for training and advice.

Tissue Culture Laboratories

The School has two tissue culture laboratories with the main laboratory equipped for anything from double haploidy to micro propagation. A PC2 tissue culture facility is also available. The tissue culture laboratories have several laminar flow work surfaces available, and cultures are grown in the phytotrons or controlled environment rooms.

Root Scanner

The school has a root scanner linked to a computer with the special program Winrhizo which is used to analyze root characteristics such as surface area, length and diameter. The system is used to compare the health and growth of root systems.

Field Station

The Shenton Park field station, situated only 7 km or 10 minutes from the main campus, covers 67 hectares and has a wide variety of facilities. Among these facilities are large open irrigated field areas for field trials, netted areas which are protected from birds, screen houses which provide insect protection, glass houses and PC2 facilities and Quarantine Facilities.

There are a number of laboratories carrying out plant breeding work, turf research and general plant research.

Western Australian Biogeochemistry Centre (WABC)

The WABC has four isotope ratio mass spectrometers (IRMS) plus access to a considerable range of further analytical instrumentation such as Gas Chromatographs (GC), High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Capillary Electrophoresis Auto Analyzer (CE) that are routinely used in biogeochemical studies.

The IRMS are coupled with a variety of sample preparation modules to facilitate analysis of a broad range of stable isotopes of C, H, O, and N.

Plant Biology Analytical Facility

The School of Plant Biology has direct access to the following analytical equipment for chemical analyses;

GC-MS:    Hewlett Packard 5890GC with 5970 Mass Selective Detector (GC-MS).

GC-FID:   Shimadzu 17A Gas Chromatograph with Flame Ionisation Detection

HPLC:  Waters Liquid Chromatographs with Photodiode Array, Fluorescence, Conductivity, and Evaporative Light Scattering detection modes, as well as fraction collection capabilities.