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Climate change, biochar, bread quality, nutrition for alpacas and the role of farmer groups could hardly be more diverse subjects.

And they represent the huge range of research being done within the UWA Institute of Agriculture. The Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Science's best PhD candidates highlighted the Institute's research last month in the annual Frontiers in Agriculture postgraduate showcase.

Institute Director Winthrop Professor Kadambot Siddique said research and teaching related to agriculture assumed an ever-increasing importance in the quest to feed a growing world population and the need to be environmentally sustainable in the face of dwindling natural resources and climate change.

"The Institute works with the agricultural and natural resource management sector to improve workforce skills, and to generate new knowledge which will assist industry stakeholders, underpin local and regional prosperity, and exercise responsible stewardship of the environment," he said.

Eight postgraduate students presented their research at this year's forum.

Animal Biology researcher Kirrin Lund encountered alpacas during her fourth year research project on the animals' energy metabolism and behaviour. She moved on to a PhD with some unanswered questions from that project. Nearing the end of her research, she has acquired some of those answers - and two alpacas of her own. Kirrin was supported by the Rural Industries and Development Corporation; her supervisors are Associate Professors Dominique Blache, John Milton and Shane Maloney.

Indonesian-born Annisa developed an interest in genetics during high school but a reluctance to dissect bodies led her to plant genetics. The Plant Biology researcher presented her findings on heat tolerance in Brassica rapa, a species cultivated as a leaf vegetable, a root vegetable and an oilseed. Annisa has an AusAID scholarship and her work is part of an ARC Linkage project. She is supervised by Winthrop Professors Wallace Cowling and Neil Turner and Dr Sheng Chen.

Also in Plant Biology, Mechelle Owen, who grew up on an orchard in Carmel and a farm in York, has been researching herbicide resistance in the WA grain belt. Her work is supported by the Grain Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), through the Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative. Her supervisors are Winthrop Professor Stephen Powles and Dr Danica Goggin.

Eduardo Dias De Olivera from Brazil and Donkor Addai from Ghana both looked at adaptation to climate change. Eduardo's project in Plant Biology studied wheat responses and adaptation in south-western Australia. His research is funded by UWA , CSIRO Plant Industry and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and he is supervised by Professor Siddique, Dr Jairo Palta (CSIRO ) and Dr Helen Bramley.

Donkor, from Agricultural Resource Economics, studied the economics of technical innovation for adaptation by broad acre farmers in WA. Donkor's work is funded by UWA and the Future Farm Industries CRC. His supervisors are Winthrop Professor David Pannell, Professor Ross Kingwell, Adjunct Professor Michael Ewing and Assistant Professor John Finlayson.

Beena Anil, from Earth and Environment, focused on agricultural extension, working on grower groups and their emergence, their role in farmer learning and future challenges. She has a UWA Scholarship and is supervised by Professor Matthew Tonts and Professor Siddique.

In the same school, Daniel Dempster studied biochar and the nitrogen cycle. He has recently submitted his thesis and taken a break from academic life to work on the family wheat and sheep farm east of Northam. His PhD was funded by the GRDC and he was supervised by Associate Professor Deirdre Gleeson, Professor Daniel Murphy and Winthrop Professor Lyn Abbott.

Shuo Wang, a Chinese national who grew up in Germany and the US, began his tertiary education in computer science. As an undergraduate in Minnesota, he used visualisation techniques to understand seismology and convection problems.

He came to WA to apply his knowledge to breads which led to fascinating discoveries about bread microstructures. At UWA , in Earth and Environment, his PhD project investigates how changing the processing of dough can lead to improved bread quality. Shuo's research is supported by UWA , CSIRO, the Department of Food and Agriculture WA (DAFWA ) and the GRDC. His supervisors are Winthrop Professor Klaus Regenauer-Lieb, Dr Sumana Bell (Centre for Grain Food Innovation) and Dr Ali Karrech (CSIRO).

Published in UWA News , 25 June 2012