What are we sequencing next? The waratah!

Thanks to seed funding from the UNSW, we were able to sequence two rainforest tree species earlier this year in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust (RBGDT), Sydney. I am pleased to announce that, together with RBGDT and the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mt Tomah, we won a bid to sequence one of the first genomes as part of the new Genomics for Australian Plants Framework Initiative by Bioplatforms Australia: the NSW state flower, the Waratah (Telopea speciosissima).

As announced recently, this is one of three species selected for the initial pilot study. Details will be sorted out in the new year, but we will be looking to use a combination of 10x Genomics linked reads and long-read sequencing (PacBio and/or Nanopore).

Collaborators on the project: M Rossetto¹, M van der Merwe¹, H Sauquet¹, P Lu-Irving¹, J Bragg¹, G Bourke², RJ Edwards³

1. Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, Sydney
2. Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mt Tomah
3. The University of New South Wales, Sydney

Image: Telopea speciosissima, Suellen’s Garden, Falls Ck NSW: Photo, Suellen Harris