Profession and contact details:

Senior Research Scientist
South Australian R/D Inst (SARDI)
Waite Campus, GPO Box 397
Adelaide, South Australia 5001, Australia

Tel: 61 8 8303 9601     Fax: 61 8 8303 9607

Key expertise or interests:

• Plant genetics, particularly in abiotic stress research
• Biometrics and quantitative genetic analyses
• Pastures and crop breeding and genetic improvement
• Farming systems and development of sustainable agriculture

Educational qualifications

1982: BSc. in  Agronomy,  Hubei  Agricultural  University, Hubei
      Province, China.
1985: MSc. in Plant Breeding and Genetics, Huazhong Agricultural       University, China.
2000: PhD, University of New England (UNE), New South Wales        (NSW), Australia
2002: Diploma in  Frontline  Management, RMIT  (Royal  Melbourne
      Institute of Technology) University, Melbourne, Australia

Employment History

March 2003–present: Senior Research Scientist in Lucerne Improvement with SARDI, Project Leader of Breeding lucerne for Southern Australian cropping districts.

2000–March 2003: Research Scientist with Victorian Department of Primary Industries, based at Hamilton, Victoria. Project Leader and Principal Investigator of a farming system project of developing strategies for evaluation and utilisation of productive pasture legumes in rotations with crops.

1996–1999: PhD candidate, working on a research program– agronomic and genetic characteristics of acidic stress tolerance in crop plants at the University of New England, Australia

1995 (July–December): Visiting Lecturer in the Division of Agronomy and Soil Science, University of New England, NSW, Australia.

1994–1995: Senior Research Fellow in rice breeding; Associate Coordinator with Food Crops Research Institute of Hubei Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Wuhan, China.

1990–1993: Research Fellow; Sub-Project Coordinator of a hybrid rice breeding and variety improvement project, Wuhan, China.

1992 (May–December): Research Fellow in Control of Rice Diseases and Insect Pests, with Japan International Cooperation Agency, Kobe, Japan.

1985–1989: Junior Research Fellow in rice breeding, Wuhan, China.

1986 (February–May): Junior Research Fellow in Genetic Evaluation and Utilisation, with the International Rice research Institute, Philippines.

Major academic accomplishments

• Referee of the following international journals and book    chapters

o Australian Journal of Agricultural Research
o Field Crop Research
o New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research
o Euphytica (published in Netherlands)
o Chapter   5 (Organic  Plant  Breeding) of  the  book – Organic
  agriculture: a Global  Perspective  (eds. Kristiansen  P etc.,
  UNE, CSIRO Publishing, 2005)

• Examiners of PhD theses from the University of New England   (2004–05)
• Chairman  of  Editorial  Board  of the Pastoral and Veterinary
  Institute, Victoria, Australia (2002–March 2003)
• Referee of many other papers and articles, internally
• Honorary Research Professor with Gansu Academy of Agricultural   Sciences (December 2003)
• Lecturing Professor with Fujian Normal University (May 2005)
• Academic  visits  to and collaboration with Gansu Agricultural
  University, Xinjiang University

Major awards

• Best Poster Award  at  the 42nd Annual Conference of Grassland
  Society of Victoria 2001, Mt Gambia, South Australia.
• Overseas  Postgraduate  Research   Scholarship  of  Australian
  Government  (January 1996 – December 1999) for research on the
  genetic  improvement  of  acidic  stress  tolerance  in   crop
  breeding, based at the University of New England, Australia.
• Certificate  of   release   of  rice  variety “E Wan 8”, Hubei
  Provincial  Examination  and   Approval   Committee  of   Crop
  Varieties, 1996.
• Best  Paper Award at the Second Young Scientists Conference of
  Hubei Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Wuhan, China, November
  1991.

Relevant memberships and social activities

2004–1996: Committee member (still under preparation) of Federation of Chinese Scholars in Australia.

2003: Board member of Directors of Chinese Association of Life Science, South Australia.

2002: Editor (from October onward) of the Pastoral and Veterinary Institute Internal Reading Panel (Acting Chairman: July–August).

1997: Secretary of International Students Association of UNE, Armidale, NSW.

1996: President of Chinese Students and Scholars Association of UNE, Armidale, NSW.

1994–1996: Board member (in the field of Agriculture) of Directors of Hubei Young Scientists and Technologists Council, Hubei, China.

1994–1995: Member of Appraisal Committee of Science and Technology Progress Prize for Hubei Provincial People's Government (in the field of Agriculture), Hubei.

Scientific publications

40 recent publications in English (since 1998) and over 20 previous publications (in English or Chinese), with recent publications listed below.

Zhang X. and Jessop R.S. 1998. Analysis of genetic variability of aluminium tolerance response in triticale. Euphytica 102: 177-182.

Zhang X., Jessop R.S. and Ellison F. 1999. Inheritance of root regrowth as an indicator of apparent aluminum tolerance in triticale. Euphytica 108: 97-103.

Zhang X., Jessop R.S. and Ellison F. 1999. Differential genotypic tolerance responses to manganese stress in triticale. Commun. Soil Sci. Pl. Anal. 30: 17 & 18, 2399-2408.

Zhang X., Jessop R.S. and Ellison F. 1999. Combining ability for aluminum tolerance in triticale. J. Agric. Sci. (Cambridge), 133: 371-377.

Zhang X., Jessop R.S. and Ellison F. 2001. Differential response and genetic analysis of acidic stress tolerance, with particular reference to aluminium stress tolerance in triticale. Plant Nutrition – Developments in Plant and Soil Science. Vol. 92 (Eds. W. J. Horst et al.). Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands. pp. 88-89.

Zhang X., Jessop R.S. and Ellison F. 2002. Differential responses to selection for aluminium stress tolerance in triticale. Aust. J. Agric. Res. 53: 1295-1303.

Zhang X.G., Jessop R.S. and Alter D. 2003. Organic acid exudation associated with aluminium stress tolerance in triticale and wheat. Aust. J. Agric. Res. 54, 979-985.

Jessop R.S., Xianguang Zhang, Zhaoyang Ying and Jiuquan Zhang. 2004. Triticale adaptation on acid soils in Southern China and Australia. Forages for the Red Soils Area of China: ACIAR Working Paper No. 55. (Eds J.M. Scott, D.A. MacLeod, Minggang Xu and A.J. Casanova). Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Canberra, 2004. pp. 105–108.

Zhang X.G., Evans P.M. and Riffkin P.A. 2004. Performance of annual pasture legumes in cropping rotations in the cool temperate zone of south eastern Australia. Aust. J. Exp. Agric. 44: 863–871.

Zhang X.G. and Evans P.M. 2004. Grain yield production in relation to plant growth of wheat and canola following clover pastures in southern Victoria. Aust. J. Exp. Agric. 44: 1003–1012.

---