Professor
Chengdao Li
Principal Research Scientist
My role in the department
Professor Li is the Australian representative on the International Barley Genetics Symposium organising committee, a member of the International Barley Genome Sequencing Consortium, Chair of the 13th International Symposium on Pre-harvest Sprouting in Cereals and panel member of the Natural Science Foundation, China.
Professor Li is also the leading researcher on barley genetics and pre-breeding with his main research areas including maximising barley yield potential, improving adaptation of barley to hostile soils, reducing grain defect risks and improving malting quality. In addition to supervising six barley research projects and having management responsibility for several more, Chengdao provides the key linkage with the Australian barley industry and the international customers.
My background
Chengdao has more than 30 years experience in the barley industry and has been involved in the breeding of the barley varieties Baudin, Vlamingh, Hamelin, Roe, Hannan and Lockyer. He has led the breeding effort to develop acid soil tolerant germplasm and barley varieties, specialised in molecular genetics, and supervised the molecular marker implementation and co-supervised genetic analysis in the Australian Winter Cereal Molecular Marker Program. He has developed molecular markers for pre-harvest sprouting, kernel discoloration, and a range of diseases as well as tolerance to acid soils, which are now widely implemented in Australian barley breeding programs.
Chengdao has a wide range of national collaborative networks in barley research with diverse international linkages and collaboration. He is currenly the project supervisor for the Australia-China Barley germplasm project.
Projects
- New acid soil and barley blue aleurone - UMU00046
- New grain defect project - UMU00047
- Manipulating barley phenology to maximise yield potential - DAW00240
- Sequencing the barley chromosome - DAW00233
Key Expertise
Genomics, comparative genetics, molecular genetics, biochemistry and genetics of malting quality, molecular marker-assisted selection, barley genetics & breeding
Qualifications
- PhD in Plant Molecular Genetics, University of Adelaide
- MS in Plant Genetics and Breeding, Zhejiang University
- BS in Agronomy, Yangtze University