CSIRO Plant Industry has signed a collaborative agreement with New Zealand's largest Crown Research Institute, AgResearch.

Both organisations will seek to jointly identify and undertake plant research projects of common interest to benefit the agricultural sector.

CSIRO Plant Industry chief, Dr Jeremy Burdon, said a number of areas of common interest had already been identified.

"Research under way at AgResearch and CSIRO Plant Industry is complementary - there's no duplication of research, only scope for expansion," he said.

The heads of agreement document signed in Canberra last week states the organisations' intention to collaborate on research and development workshops, technician exchange programs, seminar programs, conferences and research and development projects.

Eventually it may also involve the commercialisation of collaborative research and development projects.

AgResearch's Dr Stephen Goldson said he hoped the agreement would bring benefits similar to those gained from AgResearch's growing relationship with CSIRO Livestock Industries.

"That relationship has already generated some impressive results including the highly successful sequencing of the bovine genome that was completed last year in collaboration with several prestigious research organisations in North America and Europe," Goldson said.

"It makes sense to foster this relationship. Australia is our closest neighbour and, with comparable pressures on primary producers, Australian farmers share many of the same issues as New Zealand ones."