The WAARC Web
Welcome to The WAARC Web, the official podcast channel of the WA Agricultural Research Collaboration. Enabling open, honest, inclusive and impactful collaboration - this is your gateway to the conversations shaping the future of the agrifood sector in Western Australia.
The WAARC Web
Cultivating the Future: Chris Reed
Guest: Chris Reed
Host: Ali Zahid
In this episode of Cultivating the Future, Ali Zahid sits down with Chris Reed, a first-year PhD candidate and WAARC Scholar based at Murdoch University’s Western Crop Genetics Alliance.
Chris’s research tackles a persistent challenge for Western Australian barley growers: black point, a grain defect that reduces quality and causes significant economic losses for the malting, brewing and distilling industries. Through his PhD, Chris is working to better understand the causes of black point and support the development of new malting barley varieties with improved resistance.
Supervised by Professor Chengdao Li and Dr Yong Jia, Chris discusses why black point remains such a difficult problem to solve, what success would mean for growers and industry, and how applied genetics research can deliver real-world outcomes for WA agriculture.
Beyond the lab, Chris reflects on balancing PhD life with family responsibilities, sharing how he juggles study and research alongside raising two young daughters with his wife, a cardiothoracic anaesthetist at Fiona Stanley Hospital. He speaks candidly about the challenges, the support systems that make it possible, and his appreciation for the opportunity to contribute to an important research gap while building new skills.
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