The Waite Research Institute, GRDC, and Australian Society of Soil Science Inc are presenting a workshop on ‘Chemistry, amelioration and management of alkaline soils’ at the Waite Campus on Thursday, 27th of June.

Alkaline soils cover 24% of Australia with 62 Mha occurring in SE Australia. The chemical and physical properties of alkaline soils impose important constraints to yield yet their amelioration is difficult and consequently has been largely ignored. The chemical properties of alkaline soils are also unfavourable for organic carbon accumulation and the soil organic C concentrations of alkaline soils are intrinsically low which may be limiting the benefits of stubble retention systems on these soils.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together key local and national scientists to review our current state of knowledge of alkaline soils, identify important research gaps and to suggest the most productive areas for future work.

The workshop will consider a range of topics including chemistry of alkaline soils and organic carbon, measurements of organic carbon, biological activity of alkaline soils, crop breeding and plant response in alkaline soils, nutrient cycling and water use efficiency and farming systems.

INVITED SPEAKERS

Dr Pichu Rengasamy, University of Adelaide

Professor Caixian Tang, Latrobe University

Dr Roger Armstrong, DPI Victoria

Dr Tim Setter, DAFWA

Dr Gupta Vadakattu, CSIRO

Dr Rob Fitzpatrick, CSIRO

Closing date for registrations: 24th of June

When: Thursday June 27th, 2013, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm

Where: Charles Hawker Conference Centre, Charles Hawker Building room 107, University of Adelaide, Waite Campus, Waite Road Urrbrae

Click on this link http://alkalinesoils.eventbrite.com.au and follow the instructions. There will be a receipt issued at the completion of your transaction, and a ticket with booking details.

For more information contact Dr Ehsan Tavakkoli (Phone (8) 8313 2400), (ehsan.tavakkoli@adelaide.edu.au)

 

Designer eucalypts for urban landscapes

This story was orginally posted in News from the University of Adelaide, Thursday, 23 May, 2013

One of the new grafted varieties E. Nullarbor Rose, a cross between Eucalyptus youngiana and E. macrocarpa.

University of Adelaide researchers are working with the Australian nursery industry to produce ‘designer eucalypts’ more suitable for our home gardens and urban landscapes than many trees currently available.

Led by Dr Kate Delaporte at the University’s Waite Campus, the researchers and nurseries are developing a new way of propagating eucalypts that aims to be cheaper and more efficient, and, importantly, will enable production of plants with a particular flower colour, size and form.

“Eucalypts provide habitat for native birds, insects and animals and, often, are resilient to our harsh extremes – there is great potential for them to be used more in our gardens and urban areas. But there are only a small number of these specially-improved eucalypts currently available to gardeners in Australia,” says Dr Delaporte.

“Eucalypts produce a lot of viable seed but their inherent variability means that there is no guarantee that a tree with red flowers will produce seed that grows into new trees that have red flowers. Only through producing improved cultivars, propagated using methods like grafting and tissue culture, can we guarantee that the buyer knows what they are getting in terms of flower colour and tree size and shape. Most garden plants are propagated this way.”

Before potential new cultivars can be released on the market, they need to be grown over some years to test for commercially desirable characters – height and shape suitable for urban environments, attractive flowers and buds – and to ensure there aren’t any undesirable characters, like limb dropping or excessive growth.

Tissue culture is a fast and reliable way of propagating promising cultivars, but in the past, tissue culture from mature eucalypts has been extremely difficult. The new method being developed involves germinating seeds in culture and then propagating the lines from the initial seedlings.

The researchers have some promising lines of trees that can be propagated through this method which are still going through field trials.

“If we can successfully develop an economically viable method of clonal propagation through tissue culture, it will be the key that opens the door to a whole range of beautiful new designer plants,” says Dr Delaporte. “There’s so much opportunity to bring new eucalypts into the garden, all with bright flower colours, attractive foliage, bark and nuts, that are a good small size.”

The tissue culture research is building on a long-term project going since 1996, the Ornamental Eucalypt Development Program. This work has led to the new varieties released last year, Nullarbor Rose and Nullarbor Lime, produced through grafting.

Partners in current research include Humphris Nursery, Yuruga Nursery / Clonal Solutions Australia and Narromine Transplants. Other industry partners have included Longford Flowers, Redlands Farming and Ausbuds. Research has been funded by Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation and Horticulture Australia Ltd with support from The Playford Trust and The Frank and Hilda Perry Trust.

Breeding superior almonds for a growing industry

This story was orginally posted in News from the University of Adelaide, Monday, 20 May, 2013

Almonds. Image courtesy of Dr Michelle Wirthensohn

More nutritious almonds for consumers and a greater range of high-quality varieties for industry – these are the aims of the Australian Almond Breeding program at the University of Adelaide, which has just received industry funding of $2.35 million to continue developing new almond varieties.

The almond breeding program, based in the School of Agriculture, Food & Wine at the University of Adelaide’s Waite Campus, is the only one of its kind in Australia.

The new project, which will cost $2.35 million over five years, has been funded by Horticulture Australia Ltd using the Almond Industry levy and matched funds from the Australian Government. This funding will enable the program to run commercial trials of promising almond selections already developed at the Waite Campus.

“Australia is now the second biggest producer of almonds in the world, with most being exported to India. Our goal is to increase current production by 15% in the next five years, and to decrease the reliance on existing cultivars over the next 10 years, to allow the industry to take advantage of this growing market,” says the leader of the Australian Almond Breeding program, Dr Michelle Wirthensohn, a Horticulture Australia Research Fellow at the University.

Dr Wirthensohn says the major challenges for the almond industry are kernel yield and quality, disease tolerance and self-fertility.

“The best almond variety currently in Australia is Nonpareil, which needs other varieties and bees for pollination. This means that up to half of the trees in some orchards are less productive, and potentially decreasing bee populations could limit production even further, which places the industry at some risk,” she says.

“That’s where our breeding program will have benefits for industry, by providing a bigger range of almond varieties, by improving the productivity of those varieties, and at the same time producing a more nutritious almond for the consumer.”

Dr Wirthensohn says the program currently has a number of promising breeding lines in large-scale trials, which have been developed from crossing Australian, Spanish, French and American cultivars.

“We expect to release up to five superior almond varieties by 2018,” she says.

$2.4m to help make the wine consumers want

This story was orginally posted in News from the University of Adelaide, Wednesday, 1 May, 2013

Wine research and training has been given a significant boost today with the announcement of $2.4 million for a new training centre focussed on innovative wine production at the University of Adelaide’s Waite Campus.

The Australian Research Council grant was awarded under the Federal Government’s Industrial Transformation Research Program and is one of just four training centres and four research hubs from the program’s first round.

Training Centre Director Professor Vladimir Jiranek, Professor of Oenology, said the Centre would provide new knowledge, methods and technologies, as well as skilled researchers, to help the wine industry tackle its big challenges. Key objectives are to better manage flavour and alcohol content in Australia’s wines.

“The Australian wine industry is facing major challenges through climate change, water restrictions, changing consumer preferences and rising wine alcohol content. As such this research training initiative comes at a critical time for the industry and will help in retaining the global competitiveness of Australia’s wine industry,” Professor Jiranek says.

“Essentially we seek to help the industry make wines of the composition, style and quality that consumers want despite these challenges.”

The Industrial Transformation Research Program aims to support industry-research partnerships to boost the competitiveness of Australian industries.

The Training Centre provides an opportunity for the University of Adelaide’s Waite Research Institute to work with its research partners in the Wine Innovation Cluster (the Australian Wine Research Institute, CSIRO – Plant Industry, and SARDI) as well as industry partners: BioSA, Laffort Oenologie Australia Pty Ltd, Lowe Wines Pty Ltd, Memstar Pty Ltd, NSW Department of Primary Industries, Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd (UK), Tarac Technologies and Treasury Wine Estates Vintners Ltd.

The Centre will incorporate at least 12 PhD candidates and 3 postdoctoral fellows, all of whom will have an opportunity to spend extended periods embedded within a partner organisation.

A major goal of the Training Centre is to provide researchers with extensive experience working at the university/industry interface, enabling them to move seamlessly between the two and facilitating interactions between these groups.

Maternal diet sets up junk food addiction in babies

Story is based on one orginally posted in News from the University of Adelaide, Tuesday, 30 April, 2013

Research from the University of Adelaide suggests that mothers who eat junk food while pregnant have already programmed their babies to be addicted to a high fat, high sugar diet by the time they are weaned.

In laboratory studies in rats, the researchers found that a junk food diet during pregnancy and lactation desensitised the normal reward system fuelled by these highly palatable foods.

Led by Dr Bev Mühlhäusler, Postdoctoral Fellow in the University’s FOODplus Research Centre, this is the first study to show the effects of maternal junk food consumption at such an early stage in the offspring’s life. The study was published recently in The FASEB Journal.

Opioids are produced by the body as a reward response, including in response to fat and sugar. These opioids stimulate the production of the “feel good” hormone dopamine, which produces a good feeling.

“We found that the opioid signalling pathway (the reward pathway) in these offspring was less sensitive than those whose mothers were eating a standard diet,” Dr Mühlhäusler says.

This means that children being born to a mother who ate a diet dominated by junk food would need to eat more fat and sugar to get the same good feeling, increasing their preference for junk food. It would also encourage them to overeat.

“In the same way that someone addicted to opioid drugs has to consume more of the drug over time to achieve the same ‘high’, continually producing excess opioids by eating too much junk food results in the need to consume more foods full of fat and sugar to get the same pleasurable sensation,” says Dr Mühlhäusler.

“Mothers eating a lot of junk food while pregnant are setting up their children to be addicted.

“Although our research shows that many of the long-term health problems associated with maternal junk food diets can be avoided if offspring carefully follow a healthy diet after weaning, they are always going to have a predisposition for overconsumption of junk food and obesity. It’s going to make it much more difficult for them to maintain a healthy body weight.”

Dr Mühlhäusler says it is important to try and understand the effects of the maternal diet at a very early stage in the offspring to see what systems could be targeted, if any, to reverse the problem.

Initial findings from further work, however, have suggested the alterations to the opioid receptors are permanent.

“The take-home message for women is that eating large amounts of junk food during pregnancy and while breastfeeding will have long-term consequences for their child’s preference for these foods, which will ultimately have negative effects on their health,” Dr Mühlhäusler says.

New SA investment in Waite-based research to improve Australian diets

Professor Bob Gibson and his FOODplus team, in collaboration with the University of Manitoba in Canada, have been awarded $300,000 over three years to investigate more efficient and environmentally sustainable ways to increase levels of omega-3 fatty acids in the eggs and meat of chickens for better human nutrition.

The grant has been awarded through the State Government’s Premiers International Research Grant Program to improve collaborations between international partners and leading researchers in South Australia and was announced yesterday by the Minister for Science and Information Economy, Grace Portolesi.

As Professor Gibson explains “Dietary omega-3 fatty acids are essential for normal development and healthy living, but most Australians do not meet the recommended daily intakes from seafood or fish oil and increasing the amount from marine sources is not sustainable. The average Australian now eats more chicken than any other meat, so increasing the omega-3 fatty acid content of chicken meat and eggs provides a way for people to increase the intake of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids sustainably without requiring consumers to change their current purchasing or dietary practices”.

A previous project, funded by the Constellation SA scheme and aligned with the Manitoba Funding Initiative, showed that it’s possible to increase the omega-3 content of chicken meat and eggs, without affecting the sensory properties of these products, by modulating the chickens’ dietary intake of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids from sustainable plant sources. Importantly, this work also showed that birds fed a diet with an increased ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats (through addition of flaxseed oil, rich in ALA) had better growth rates and improved feed conversion ratio (FCR) compared to the birds fed a control commercial diet.

The new initiative project will examine the best ways to reduce the cost of providing the flaxseed diet, while still sustaining growth and feed efficiency benefits and retaining the increased nutritional attributes of the chicken products. It will build on industry interest in the preliminary work, translating this research into industry practice and has direct applications to flaxseed growers, chicken feed producers and chicken production industries, and is squarely aligned with the South Australian Government’s Strategic Priority for premium food and wine from a clean environment.

Protecting Aussie grapevines from new virus

Red Blotch on grapevine leaves. Photo courtesy of M.R. Sudarshana, United States Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service

Story orginally posted in News from the University of Adelaide, Tuesday, 8 April, 2013

University of Adelaide researchers are working to prevent the introduction into Australia of a potentially devastating new grapevine virus.

Waite Diagnostics, at the University’s Waite Campus, has developed a diagnostic test kit for the detection of Grapevine red blotch-associated virus (GRBaV) using DNA analysis.

GRBaV was discovered and first reported in the United States in October last year, and is regarded as potentially far more damaging than the Grapevine leafroll-associated viruses which are established in Australia.

“Viruses in grapevines are insidious and often cause serious diseases which affect production and quality, and can even result in vine death,” says Professor John Randles, Director of Waite Diagnostics.

“We don’t have any way of immunising plants like we can with animals and so we need to employ different methods of control which require detailed knowledge of the virus’ biological properties.”

University of Adelaide grapevine virologist Dr Nuredin Habili said the Grapevine Red Blotch disease was the most recently recognised grapevine disease to date, and is apparently widespread in the US. It significantly reduces the levels of grape sugar by up to five brix (a measure of sugar content), reducing suitability for wine-making.

The symptoms of the Red Blotch disease resemble those of leafroll disease with unexplained reddening of the leaves and, on white varieties, leaf curling and chlorosis, but the depressing effect on sugar content is greater.

“The question is, do we already have this virus in Australia?” says Dr Habili. “If not, we need to import cuttings under tight biosecurity conditions. All cuttings imported from the United States or Canada should be tested before being released from quarantine.”

Waite Diagnostics has tested 10 grapevine varieties from Australian vineyards which have all tested negative.

The diagnostic test developed uses a specific ‘primer’ or piece of genetic material which recognises the matching DNA sequence of the virus, if present, allowing screening of cuttings.

“Viruses are very difficult to identify, the symptoms of virus infection in grapevine all look like each other,” says Professor Randles. “With this latest technology using DNA analysis, we now have 12 different tests for grapevine viruses and phytoplasmas. Our diagnostic kits already go all over the world.