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Dr David Backhouse

Associate Professor - School of Environmental and Rural Science

Phone: +61 2 6773 2341

Email: dbackhou@une.edu.au

Qualifications

BSc PhD (NSW)

Teaching Areas

I teach mycology (the biology of fungi) and plant pathology in the following courses:

BOTY370 Mycology and Plant Pathology
AGRO311 Plant Protection

I also coordinate HORT220/420 Horticultural Science and contribute to teaching in other Agronomy, Biology and Botany units

Research Interests

My main research interests are in the ecology of soil fungi and in the epidemiology and management of plant diseases. I did my PhD on the biology of Botrytis species. This was followed by a postdoc at the University of Auckland working on biological control of onion white rot, and another postdoc at the University of Sydney working on the effects of farming practices on the health of wheat root systems. Since joining UNE in 1998 I have had funded research and supervised postgraduate projects on topics including:

Epidemiology and management of crown rot of wheat
Population genetics of Fusarium species from cereals
Effects of climate on the geographical distribution of fungi and plant diseases
Fungal-plant interactions in soilborne diseases
Biological control of soilborne diseases

I have also been fortunate to work on a range of other research projects that apply molecular biology and remote sensing to plant pathology.

Publications

You can find updated lists of my publications on

Further Information

The University of New England respects and acknowledges that its people, courses and facilities are built on land, and surrounded by a sense of belonging, both ancient and contemporary, of the world's oldest living culture. In doing so, UNE values and respects Indigenous knowledge systems as a vital part of the knowledge capital of Australia. We recognise the strength, resilience and capacity of the Aboriginal community and pay our respects to the Elders past, present and future.