AgResearch is one of seven Crown Research Institutes established by the New Zealand Government to provide science and research that has real impact for the country and global partners. AgResearch’s core focus is to deliver high quality science to enhance the value, productivity and sustainability of New Zealand’s pastoral, agri-food and agri-technology sectors. Its team of more than 600 scientists and support staff includes world-leading experts in their scientific fields. The institute is leading and collaborating on a broad range of research to make agriculture more productive, resilient, and sustainable in the face of challenges such as climate change, impacts on freshwater quality, and shifting consumer trends. It is also committed to bringing indigenous knowledge, mātauranga Māori, into equal footing with Western science, and embedding into its everyday work indigenous principles and values to better respond to the needs of Māori (New Zealand’s indigenous people) and better deliver to Māori aspirations.

Role in the Legume Generation project

AgResearch, particularly the Grasslands campus, has a decades long history in forage breeding and fundamental grass and legume research. As part of the Legume Generation programme, our focus is the identification of genes controlling gametophytic self-incompatibility in white clover and how this new knowledge may be used to develop novel clover breeding strategies.