Are you looking to build connections into the agriculture or food industries? Perhaps you are passionate about a particular issue or crop? Or maybe you’re looking to study for a PhD in the future? An honours degree at the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture might be for you.
Working with a supervisory team, you can complete an honours project in your chosen area, whether that’s vegetable agronomy, dairy cow welfare or soil health (or anything in between). Doing an honours degree helps you to improve your problem solving, communication and project management skills and gain a better understanding of the research process.
Industry focused
Most of our honours projects are working directly with industry partners, helping you build your industry knowledge and network. Many of our honours graduates get excellent industry jobs or go on to complete further study.
Eligibility
To be eligible, students need to have completed an undergraduate degree in a science subject, or have completed the third year of their Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree at the University of Tasmania. Students who have completed an undergraduate degree at other universities are welcome to apply.
Most candidates are based on-campus at a location that is most suited to their research (Hobart, Launceston, Burnie). In some cases, candidates may be externally located (e.g. based in industry or a family farm) but supported with supervision from our staff.
Scholarships
The University of Tasmania offers scholarships in agriculture to reward and encourage students. You can even apply for multiple scholarships in one easy application. Find out more about scholarships.
Available projects
We welcome enquiries from suitably qualified potential applicants. For more information contact the Honours Coordinator Dr Apeh Omede.
Project Description: There are several freely available agricultural mathematical models on the internet. These have scales ranging from the paddock to the globe. However, most models still require some adjusting to local conditions in order to match field data or regional observations. This project will compare crop production and grain yield of selected decision-support tools (e.g. APSIM, DSSAT) and simple empirical models programmed from first principles to determine which model(s) provide better predictions with the lowest amount of model coefficient adjustment (parameterisation).
Primary Supervisor: Matthew Harrison
Industry Partner Involvement: No
Student Stipend Offered: No
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project Description: This project aims to determine whether the impact of a biostimulant, biological and a fungicide can be observed using the QUOLL enose or other agronomic or microbiological measures in a series of glasshouse trials.
Primary Supervisor: Dr Shane Powell
Industry Partner Involvement: Syngenta (will co supervise)
Student Stipend Offered: $5,000
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project Description: The project would investigate the specific temperature and light requirements for germination of Talish clover, an alternative perennial legume for medium-low rainfall grazing systems. It would also include investigation of appropriate scarification techniques for breaking seed dormancy. The combined knowledge gained is likely to contribute to better field establishment of this species.
Primary Supervisor: Rowan Smith, Research will be conducted at Sandy Bay with few trips to Mt Pleasant, Launceston.
Industry Partner Involvement: None
Student Stipend Offered: No
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project description: Vineyard practices that increase efficiency and reduce labour, such as mechanical harvesting, can improve vineyard profitability and support industry growth. Some Tasmanian winegrape growers that use mechanical harvesting have reported no negative impacts on resultant berry and wine quality, yet anecdotally there is a belief that machine-harvesting produces inferior wines, meaning that many growers still practice hand-harvesting.
Primary supervisor: Dr Harriet Walker
Industry partner involvement: Wine Tasmania
Student stipend offered: No, but some operating funds may be available
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project Description: There is evidence that pre-calving behaviour of cows in housed dairy systems differs between cows that have poor production and health in early lactation, compared with cows that have good production and health. This project will use cow behaviour, production and health data collected at our dairy research farm in Elliott to investigate if these differences in behaviour are also present in cows in a grazing based dairy system.
Primary Supervisor: Pieter Raedts and Megan Verdon (co-supervisor)
Industry Partner Involvement: No. This project is based at the Cradle Coast Campus in Burnie and will be conducted using data from the TIA Dairy Research Facility at Elliott, but the student can be based in Hobart.
Student Stipend Offered: No
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project Description: This project investigates if there are relationships between cow behaviour and health, for cows in early lactation in a grazing based spring calving dairy herd. Determining these relationships is much more challenging in pasture based dairy systems, due to the variation in cow activity and behaviour caused by grazing paddocks at varying distance to the dairy shed where they are milked twice daily. The distance varies between 100 meters to over a kilometre one way. This project will use data collected at our dairy research farm in Elliott such as cow behaviour (from on-cow sensors), and body weight, body condition, production and health. If relationships are found, these may form the basis for developing early warning systems for health issue of early lactation dairy cows in grazing-based systems.
Primary Supervisor: Michael Rose, Pieter Raedts (co-supervisor), James Hills (co-supervisor)
Industry Partner Involvement: No. This project is based at the Cradle Coast Campus in Burnie and will be conducted using data from the TIA Dairy Research Facility at Elliott, but the student can be based in Hobart.
Student Stipend Offered: No.
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project Description: There are a variety of areas of interest regarding nutrition of dry and lactating dairy cows and young stock, focussing mainly on quantity and/or quality of feed. Proof of concepts will be tested on our research farm in Elliott and/or on commercial dairy farms.
Primary Supervisor: Pieter Raedts
Industry Partner Involvement: No. This project is based at the Cradle Coast Campus in Burnie and will be conducted using data from the TIA Dairy Research Facility at Elliott, but the student can be based in Hobart.
Student Stipend Offered: No.
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project description: The wool industry is heavily reliant on the use of preventive treatment with pesticides to protect sheep from flystrike. However, there are very few different pesticide groups available, and resistance is becoming common to all of these products.
A computer model has been developed to examine different management systems that influence the rate of increase of resistance of flies to the available pesticides. This has been primarily used to study management of flystrike in areas where there are two primary fly seasons, spring and autumn, or a long period of fly risk of 5-6 months. However, Tasmania has a shorter fly season, and Tasmanian wool producers may be able to use different management options from those required on the mainland.
This project will concentrate on management choices for Tasmanian wool producers to control flystrike, while limiting any increase of resistance of flies to the pesticides used.
Primary supervisor: Brian Horton
Industry partner involvement: AWI
Student stipend offered: NA
Location: Launceston or Hobart
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project description: White clover is a valuable pasture legume preferred by dairy cows due to its high palatability. High-clover pastures increase intake by boosting dry matter per bite, while low-clover swards may prolong grazing as cows search for clover patches—potentially reducing grazing efficiency and productivity. This desktop project will analyse accelerometer and GPS collar data collected from dairy cows at the TIA Dairy Research Facility as part of the Dairy HIGH2 trial. The student will investigate whether cow foraging intensity and movement patterns in the first hours after allocation to a new pasture break differ between high- and low-clover paddocks, providing insight into short-term behavioural responses to pasture composition.
Primary supervisor: Pieter Raedts and Dr Zac Beechey-Gradwell
Industry partner involvement: N/A
Student Stipend offered: N/A
Location: Hobart, Launceston, Burnie
Project Description: Climate change has increased the frequency of extreme abiotic stresses, including waterlogging. Therefore, there is a increasing demand in further understanding the mechanisms underlying waterlogging tolerance in multiple crops. A resilient root development in response to abiotic stress determines crop survival, development, grain quality and yield under waterlogging. The fast formation of the aerenchyma (air channels in root) significantly improves crop survival rate under anoxic conditions. As the ‘gates’ for water exchange and CO2 uptake in plants, stomatal guard cells also determine carbon cycles of plants, affecting plant photosynthesis especially under water-related abiotic stresses. The regulatory networks between root to shoot critically tunes the stomatal activities for optimised photosynthesis under waterlogging. However, there is no reports on root and stomatal morphological/physiological changes in crops under anoxic conditions. Therefore, how are the root to shoot regulatory networks regulated in tolerant lines vs susceptible lines?
Primary Supervisor: Dr Chenchen Zhao
Industry Partner Involvement: GRDC
Student Stipend Offered: No, but there may be the option to allocate some funding in the future.
Location: Launceston
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Title: Regrowth Trajectories in White Clover versus Ryegrass
Project description: White clover is a valuable component of dairy pastures that enhances forage quality and provides a sustainable source of nitrogen through symbiotic fixation. Although the seasonal growth patterns of white clover and ryegrass are well documented, their light interception dynamics and regrowth trajectories within a single grazing cycle are less well understood. This honours project will use a combination of plant physiological measurements, time-lapse photography, and destructive harvests to compare the post-defoliation regrowth dynamics of clover and ryegrass. Experiments will be conducted at the TIA Dairy Research Facility in northwest Tasmania, within the Dairy HIGH2 trial, which aims to reduce synthetic N use by increasing sward diversity.
Primary supervisor: Dr Zac Beechey-Gradwell and Associate Professor Richard Rawnsley
Industry partner involvement: N/A
Student Stipend offered: $5000
Location: Cradle Coast Campus
Project description: Warming winters may negatively impact on insects by reducing survival overwinter. This is because warm temperatures may speed up insect metabolism, increasing the rate at which hibernating insects use up their energy reserves. The project will assess the role of overwintering temperatures on various ecological and economically important insect species.
Primary supervisor: Dr Jon Finch, Dr Lynne Forster
Industry partner involvement: NA
Student stipend offered: NA
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project description: Vineyard practices that increase efficiency and reduce labour, such as mechanical harvesting, can improve vineyard profitability and support industry growth. Some Tasmanian winegrape growers that use mechanical harvesting have reported no negative impacts on resultant berry and wine quality, yet anecdotally there is a belief that machine-harvesting produces inferior wines, meaning that many growers still practice hand-harvesting.
Primary supervisor: Dr Harriet Walker
Industry partner involvement: Wine Tasmania
Student stipend offered: No, but some operating funds may be available
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project description: This project will investigate the use of carbon dots (CDs), a class of carbon-based nanoparticles, to improve photosynthesis and crop productivity in pyrethrum plants. Specifically, it will explore the use of glucose-functionalised CDs as reported by Swift et al (2021). Glucose-functionalised CDs is sustainable and potentially cost effective and the discovery of their benefits represents a significant advancement in the use of nano technologies. It will also be supported by Botanical Resources Australia.
Swift, TA et al (2024) Photosynthesis and crop productivity are enhanced by glucosefunctionalised carbon dots. New Phytologist229: 783–790
Primary Supervisor: Alistair Gracie
Industry Partner Involvement: Botanical Resources Australia
Student stipend offered: No
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project description: Strawberry (Fragaria spp.) is an important horticultural crop worldwide and a model system for understanding non-climactic fruit ripening. Strawberry varieties grown in Tasmania have been bred to thrive in cool climates. However, even Tasmania experiences hot summers and these higher temperatures can have detrimental effects on fruit ripening and resulting fruit quality. The factors controlling the impact of high temperatures on strawberry fruit ripening are not well understood, so adaptive management practices have not yet been developed.
In this study we will investigate how ripening under heat stress is different to ripening under normal conditions by investigating phytohormonal changes that happen during ripening under heat stress. Local heat susceptible and tolerant varieties of Tasmania, along with newly bred lines from the Australian Strawberry Breeding Program (ASBP) will be used for this project.
Primary supervisor: Dr Nathan Tivendale
Industry partner involvement: Berried in Tas, Pinata Farms
Student stipend offered: NA
Project Description: The goal is to isolate and characterise bacteria able to degrade lignin and plant hemicellulose in soils that possess demonstrably high aggregate stability and link capabilities to soil functionality. Part of the work will involve assessment of genome data and metagenome data obtained using Nanopore-based sequencing.
Primary Supervisor: John Bowman
Industry Partner Involvement: No
Student Stipend Offered: No
This project is available in Bachelor of Science with Honours (S4E).
Project Description: There is an interest to measure the contributions of keystone taxa in microbiomes to enable more in-depth functional studies and to better assess treatment-based experiments. To do this requires an accurate estimate of cell populations. The goal is to develop a digital PCR assay to measure specific bacterial and archaeal taxa in gut microbiome sample DNA extracts. For the project this will include DNA extracts obtained from gut and digesta samples taken from cows (target - Methanobrevibacter) and Atlantic salmon (target - Aliivibrio). To do this will involve assaying selected single copy genes as well as 16S rRNA genes.
Primary Supervisor: Professor John Bowman
Industry Partner Involvement: No. This project will be conducted either in the microbiology lab in Sandy Bay (digital PCR instrument is based in CSL nearby) or will be conducted from a lab in Launceston (from 2024)
Student Stipend Offered: No.
Location: Hobart or Launceston.
This project is available in Bachelor of Science with Honours (S4E).
Project Description: The aim of this project is to analyse data on domestic refrigerator temperatures and how these affect the microbiological safety and quality of foods using available predictive tools. To achieve this aim, the project will involve a small survey of the temperature of domestic refrigerators using a temperature logger. The microbiological safety and quality of foods will then be assessed through the use of available predictive models (either online and/or from previously published work) for selected foods based on the time-temperature data collected. The results of this project and the interpretation based on them can be used to increase consumer's awareness in relation to refrigeration practices, promoting food safety and wastage.
Primary Supervisor: Dr Jay Kocharunchitt
Industry Partner Involvement: Possibly with Tasmanian Department of Health.
Student Stipend Offered: No
Location: Hobart or Launceston
This project is available in Bachelor of Science with Honours (S4E).
Project Description: Spongospora sp. is an important pathogen of potato found in most Tasmanian soils. This project will examine in detail novel management tools based on premature germination of the pathogen resting spores resulting in soil inoculum exhaustion and removal.
Primary Supervisor: Calum Wilson, Robert Tegg
Industry Partner Involvement: Simplot
Student Stipend Offered: No
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project Description: Powdery scab is the biggest threat to productivity and profitability of the Australian potato industry. The pathogen persists in soil as dormant resting spores germinating in presence of potato. We have discovered specific plant root exudate compounds that attract released zoospores to roots by chemotaxis (chemical attraction). We propose a novel disease management approach that can disrupt zoospore chemotaxis by supplying alternate (confounding) chemical signals in the soil. This project will assess proof of concept for the approach and will utilise new microdialysis technologies to determine the efficacy of the approach in situ in soil systems.
Primary Supervisor: Calum Wilson and Bianca Das, Robert Tegg (co-supervisor)
Industry Partner Involvement: Links with current Simplot Australia and Potatoes NZ supported work
Student Stipend Offered: No
Location: Hobart or Launceston
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project Description: Pasture productivity is a critical component of agricultural production, with environmental stressors impacting the growth and nutritional value of the crop. This project aims to test and validate the use of a low-cost hand-held chlorophyll fluorescence meter for predicting pasture health, productivity, and nutritional value through rapid, non-destructive sampling. Controlled environment trials will be conducted to validate leaf chlorophyll fluorescence measurements of plant productivity and nitrogen content under various abiotic and biotic stress conditions in three pasture species.
Primary Supervisor: Dr Tory Clarke
Industry Partner Involvement: No
Student Stipend Offered: No
Location: Burnie
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project Description: Powdery scab is the biggest threat to productivity and profitability of the Australian potato industry. The pathogen persists in soil as dormant resting spores germinating in presence of potato. We have discovered specific plant root exudate compounds that attract released zoospores to roots by chemotaxis (chemical attraction). We propose a novel disease management approach that can disrupt zoospore chemotaxis by supplying alternate (confounding) chemical signals in the soil. This project will assess proof of concept for the approach and will utilise new microdialysis technologies to determine the efficacy of the approach in situ in soil systems.
Primary Supervisor: Calum Wilson and Bianca Das, Robert Tegg (co-supervisor)
Industry Partner Involvement: Links with current Simplot Australia and Potatoes NZ supported work
Student Stipend Offered: No
Location: Hobart or Launceston
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project Description: Investigating the effect of pivot length on irrigation application efficiency, wetting patterns, irrigation uniformity, runoff etc.
Primary Supervisor: Marcus Hardie, Sue Hinton
Industry Partner Involvement: No
Student Stipend Offered: No
This project is available in Bachelor of Agriculture with Honours (S4X) and Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours (S4A).
Project Description: The goal is to isolate and characterise bacteria able to degrade lignin and plant hemicellulose in soils that possess demonstrably high aggregate stability and link capabilities to soil functionality. Part of the work will involve assessment of genome data and metagenome data obtained using Nanopore-based sequencing.
Primary Supervisor: John Bowman
Industry Partner Involvement: No
Student Stipend Offered: No
This project is available in Bachelor of Science with Honours (S4E).
Project description:
Dairy cows under typical rotational grazing regimes enter paddocks from the front and back-graze over several days, spending less time in the rear zones of paddocks. This results in spatially variable nutrient returns, potentially creating gradients in soil fertility and pasture regrowth. This desktop project, conducted within the Dairy HIGH2 trial at the TIA Dairy Research Facility, will analyse transect-level rising plate meter data to quantify within-paddock biomass production gradients and assess their relationship with cow distribution measured using GPS collar data, and soil fertility indicators. The study will test whether reduced cow visitation to rear zones leads to lower pasture productivity and nutrient cycling.
Primary supervisor: Dr Zac Beechey-Gradwell and Pieter Raedts (research can be conducted at any campus)
Industry partner involvement: N/A
Student Stipend offered: N/A
Location: Hobart, Launceston, Burnie