Research in the Farrar lab focuses on increasing biomass yield in energy crops in order to replace fossil fuel usage, sequester atmospheric carbon, & ultimately contribute to climate change mitigation. In order to achieve this, there are two main research areas: Plant developmental biology & genetics and Plant-soil-microbe interactions.

Specialties

• Biomass crops
• Perennial grasses
• Bacterial endophytes

http://www.resilientcrops.org/

http://www.miscanthusbreeding.org/miscanspeed.html

I participated in the first UKERC/NESTA Carbon Crucible programme, and subsequently the establishment of the THE award winning Welsh Crucible. I have a personal interest in promoting diversity among the research community, and have been an Aberystwyth University Equalities Champion.
I co-organise the BioEnergy Grass Genomics workshop at the annual Plant and Animal Genome Conference.

I graduated in 1996 with a Plant Sciences degree from the University of Edinburgh. I obtained a PhD in Plant Molecular Biology from the University of Durham (2000) and spent three years (2000-2003) as a postdoc at Aberystwyth University. I have worked at IGER/IBERS since January 2004; as a postdoc (2004-2007), a BBSRC Institute Career Path Fellow (2007-2013), Research Group leader for Energy Crop Biology (2011-2016), Theme leader for Agricultural Sciences & the BioEconomy (2018-2022) and as Institute Strategic Program lead for Resilient Crops (2023-present). I have been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB) since 2014. 

Research in my lab aims to understand both plant development and plant-microbe interactions, with a focus on the energy grass Miscanthus. Miscanthus is a perennial C4 grass which grows to a height of several metres every year, even in temperate climates, providing an annual biomass crop for over 15 years. Increasing biomass yield, under a changing climate, is essential in order to replace petroleum-based energy, liquid transport fuels, and bulk chemicals.