Global Council for Innovation in Rapeseed and Canola
Members' Directory
Last name :
NELSON
First name :
Matthew
Entrance year :
2025
Occupation :
Principal Research Scientist
Birthdate :
1973/12/03
Address :
CSIRO Floreat Labs,
147 Underwood Avenue,
6014 Perth / Australia
Main fields of interest :
- Seeds, genetics
Professional experience : Dr Nelson leads the Adaptive Traits team at CSIRO in Perth, Western Australia. Having gained his PhD in crop genetics at the John Innes Centre (UK), he worked as a molecular breeder in commercial crop breeding programs in The Netherlands and Australia, and as a crop geneticist and pre-breeder at the University of Western Australia and Royal Botanic Garden, Kew (UK). He joined the CSIRO (Australia’s national science agency) in 2018 to lead a national program of canola improvement. His research interests include canola adaptation (phenology and establishment), legume domestication and the effective use of wild germplasm in crop improvement.
Education : PhD in Plant Genetics, University of East Anglia, UK, 1996-2000
Research conducted at John Innes Centre (UK) and AAFC Saskatoon Research Centre (Canada)
Thesis: Genetic analysis of Sinapis alba L.
Supervisors: Dr Derek Lydiate and Dr Eddie Arthur
BSc (First Class Honours) Agricultural Botany, University of Glasgow, UK, 1991-1995
Honours project dissertation: Salt tolerance in nodulated and non-nodulated Casuarina species
Supervisors: Dr. Peter Dominy and Dr. Chris Wheeler
Selected publications : - Mancinotti et al (2023) The causal mutation leading to sweetness in modern white lupin cultivars. Science Advances 9:eadg8866
- Nelson et al (2022) Strategies to improve field establishment of canola: a review. Advances in Agronomy 175:133-177
- Renzi et al (2022) How could the use of crop wild relatives in breeding increase the adaptation of crops to marginal environments? Frontiers in Plant Science 13:886162
- Taylor et al (2021) A Trimethylguanosine Synthase1-like (TGS1) homologue is implicated in vernalisation and flowering time control. Theor Appl Genet 134:3411-3426
- Hufnagel et al (2021) Pangenome of white lupin provides insights into the diversity of the species. Plant Biotechnology Journal 19:2532-2543
- Luo et al (2021) Genome-wide association mapping unravels the genetic control of seed vigor under low-temperature conditions in rapeseed (Brassica napus L.). Plants 10:426
- Hufnagel et al (2020) High-quality genome sequence of white lupin provides insight into soil exploration and seed quality. Nature Communications 11:492
- Leebens-Mack et al. (2019) One thousand plant transcriptomes and the phylogenomics of green plants. Nature 574:679-685
- Taylor et al (2019) INDEL variation in the regulatory region of the major flowering time gene LanFTc1 is associated with vernalisation response and flowering time in narrow-leafed lupin (Lupinus angustifolius L.). PCE 42:174-187
- Chen et al (2019) Nondestructive phenomic tools for the prediction of heat and drought tolerance at anthesis in Brassica species. Plant Phenomics 2019:3264872
- Smýkal et al (2018) The impact of genetic changes during crop domestication. Agronomy 8:119
- Nelson et al (2017) The loss of vernalisation requirement in narrow-leafed lupin is associated with a deletion in the promoter and de-repressed expression of an FT homologue. New Phytologist 213:220-232
- Guo et al (2017) Drought-tolerant Brassica rapa shows rapid expression of gene networks for general stress responses and programmed cell death under simulated drought stress. Plant Mol. Biol. Rep. 35:416-430
- Nelson et al (2016) Can genomics assist the phenological adaptation of canola to new and changing environments? Crop & Pasture Science 67:284-297
- Mason et al (2016) Centromere locations in Brassica A and C genome revealed through half-tetrad analysis. Genetics 202:513-523
- Cannon et al 2015) Multiple polyploidy events in the early radiation of nodulating and non-nodulating legumes. MBE 32:193-210
