Meet Shuangxi Zhou - DPIRD recruits a new Research Scientist
Dr Shuangxi Zhou has recently commenced at the Department or Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) as a Research Scientist.
Pomewest welcomes his expertise to the Horticultural Sector in WA in particularly to support the national Narrow Orchard Systems Project.
Dr Zhou is a plant physiologist passionate in bridging fundamental and applied plant science, testing science-driven and productivity-profitability-sustainability-oriented hypotheses, to resolve industry challenges.
With 17 years of experience, Dr Zhou has been involved in the development and adoption of research within commercial, academia, and governmental applied research environments in Australia, China, New Zealand and Spain including, CSIRO, New Zealand Plant and Food Research Institute, Macquarie University and Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has contributed to the R&D innovation of a diverse range of horticultural, broadacre and tree industries.
Dr Zhou formal recognition from industry and academia nationally and internationally include Crawford Fund scholar (2015), Young scholar recognition by the XIX International Botanical Congress (2017), and Primary Industries New Zealand ‘Science & Research Award’ for the team’s ‘The Future Orchard Production System’ (2020).
Dr Zhou’s role at DPIRD will include:
Validating 2D planting systems to optimise fruit tree light relations for enhanced yield, quality and storage potential, emerging technologies such as automation, biological insecticides and pesticides, soil fumigation replacement, to enhance the resource use efficiency (i.e., energy, water, nutrient, labour, etc.)
Assessing environmental footprints of orchards, and
Investigating plant and orchard resilience to extreme climate events, via integrating the stress resilience of both canopy and root systems (e.g., drought, salinity, heat wave, changed rainfall pattern, waterlogging, etc.).
Shuangxi has also visited the apple, pear and kiwifruit industries in five counties of Shannxi Province, China, and these R&D networks may be useful for research collaboration.