University News

The University of Western Australia (UWA) and its Institute of Agriculture continue to play an important role expanding the capacity of Iraqi agriculture and reducing the country’s dependence on imported food by training Iraq’s brightest and best graduate agriculture students.

Ten graduate students joined UWA early this year to study for their Master of Science degrees in Animal Science, Plant Pathology, Genetics and Breeding and Agricultural and Resource Economics at UWA.

Kununurra born Christian Bloecker expects to return to his family’s 1100 hectare farm in the Ord River Irrigation Area at the end of the year, equipped with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and a Bachelor of Economics from The University of Western Australia (UWA).

At 24, he also expects to ‘hit the ground running’ and intends making an impact not only at the family farm level, but also with Stage Two of the Ord River Irrigation Area.

“I see the Ord becoming not just Australia’s food bowl, but South-East Asia’s food bowl and I want to play a role in helping it get there,” Mr Bloecker said.

Thirteen Deans from six agricultural universities around China will be at The University of Western Australia for a three-day workshop on agricultural research and education from tomorrow.

The workshop aims to develop plans for collaborative research in livestock agriculture and pastures; and plant biology and agriculture.

Recent research conducted at The University of Western Australia (UWA) School of Animal Biology and Institute of Agriculture (IOA) has shown that when it comes to getting sheep in the mood and those reproductive juices flowing, nothing beats a little novelty.

PhD student Trina Jorre de St Jorre has been examining the ‘ram effect’ on ewes where the sudden introduction of rams has merino ewes ovulating within two to three days.

Australia’s brightest and best agricultural research was recently on display at the ‘Frontiers in Agriculture Postgraduate Showcase 2009’ at The University of Western Australia (UWA), Institute of Agriculture (IOA).

Introducing the eight postgraduate students from the Agricultural and Resource Economics, Earth and Environment, Animal and Plant Biology schools within UWA’s Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, Chair in Agriculture and IOA Director, Winthrop Professor Kadambot Siddique, described their work as extremely relevant to the future of WA and Australian agriculture and its sustainability.

A new centre that recognises the crucial role of research in bringing environmental, economic and social benefits to Australia will be opened tomorrow by The University of Western Australia Professorial Fellow and former WA Premier, Dr Carmen Lawrence.

The Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy, in UWA’s Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, aims to develop and apply models and decision frameworks that push forward the frontiers of environmental policy design, focusing on scientific outcomes within an economic framework.

Its vision is to improve the management of Australia’s environment through research that leads to more appropriate and cost-effective environmental public policy.

Research conducted by The University of Western Australia (UWA) School of Plant Biology and Institute of Agriculture has demonstrated that several herbaceous legumes may be viable alternatives to lucerne under low phosphorus conditions for West Australian farmers in areas where lucerne performs poorly.

The research compared the growth of 10 native and exotic herbaceous legumes to lucerne growing in glasshouses, supplied with different levels of phosphorus.

The study found that four species, Bituminaria bituminosa, Glycine canescens, Kennedia prostrata, and K. prorepens, grew better than lucerne in low phosphorus conditions and that two species, B. bituminosa and G. canescens, used phosphorus applied to soil more efficiently than other species where low phosphorus was a problem.

Headed by Professor George Milne of the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, researchers at The University of Western Australia (UWA) have concluded that a classical swine fever outbreak, starting in north Queensland, could spread widely through Australia’s 20 million feral pigs, potentially posing a risk to Australia’s domestic pig population.

“Our computer model simulated the effect of wild pigs moving across the landscape and showed how classical swine fever could spread among feral pigs in the right seasonal conditions, becoming endemic and almost impossible to eradicate,” Professor Milne said.

Researchers at The University of Western Australia will conduct a $833,000 project aimed at future-proofing the State's $24 million table grape industry.

The research will investigate the impact of climate on the development cycle of table grapes and other temperate crops in WA.  The $583,000 funding from the Australian Research Council's Linkage Project was matched by $250,000 from research partners the Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia (DAFWA) and the Gascoyne Table Grape Growers Association.

Finding it hard to juggle your cropping operation with your sheep operation?  Had enough of feeding sheep in the dark during seeding?  The University of Western Australia is working on some solutions.

UWA Masters student Gus Rose has been investigating the problems faced by time-pressed farmers in a project funded by Land and Water Australia.

“As farm sizes increase and labour gets harder to find, many farmers are focusing on cropping as their core business,” Mr Rose said.

A powerful spotlight is shining on the Institute of Agriculture (IOA) at The University of Western Australia (UWA), with a long list of prestigious awards, scholarship grants and healthy student enrolments impressing the scientific community, governments and industry. 

The recent prize windfall for three young UWA IOA students at the Young Professionals in Agriculture Forum, hosted by the Department of Agriculture and Food WA and Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology, underlined why UWA is the university of choice for undergraduates seeking to excel in agricultural and related natural resource management studies. 

Annaliese Mason, agricultural science PhD student at The University of Western Australia (UWA), has been awarded the prestigious 2008 Mike Carroll Travelling Fellowship.

She will spend six weeks in France researching how to combat potential problems of abnormal chromosome associations in Super Brassica plants.

Announcing the winner at a ceremony at UWA’s Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, Helen Carroll said the Fellowship honoured her deceased husband, former Director General of the WA Department of Agriculture, Dr Mike Carroll.

Pioneering PhD research at The University of Western Australia not only helped launch a major Australian export industry, it also won the researcher a prestigious award in India recently.

A series of innovative projects and initiatives have placed the Institute of Agriculture (IOA), The University of Western Australia (UWA), at the forefront of national and international agricultural education and research.

IOA Director, Professor Kadambot Siddique, said plant based food, fibre and industrial raw materials were essential for human survival against the backdrop of escalating input costs and climate change.

Recognising this has led to the development, earlier this year, of  the International Centre for Plant Breeding, Education and Research (ICPBER) at UWA within the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Professor Siddique said the Centre addressed the emerging global need for training first class scientists in genetics, biotechnology and plant breeding.

Novel weed management methods are the focus of two recently completed fourth year projects by students at the Institute of Agriculture (IOA), The University of Western Australia.

Professor Kadambot Siddique, IOA's Director, says weeds competing with crops and pastures for sunlight, water and nutrients are a major constraint to agricultural production, costing farmers billions of dollars each year in lost production and management costs.

"With global population forecast to exceed nine billion by 2050, there will be a significant and increasing demand for food without increasing the land area used for agriculture.

Long term strategies for adapting to climate change will result from a collaborative project between researchers at the Institute of Agriculture (IOA), The University of Western Australia (UWA) and Lanzhou University (LU) in west China.

Professor Kadambot Siddique, IOA’s Director, said the Institute was invited by LU to become a partner in a ‘111 Project’ on sustainable development of agricultural systems in dry and cold ecosystems of the Loess Plateau, Gansu Province, west China.

“The project’s overall objective is capacity building, by training researchers and postgraduate students in characterising dry and cold ecosystems and improving crop and pasture production technologies, land management and animal husbandry practices.

Drought, war and limited access to technological advances have had a significant negative impact on agriculture development and productivity in Iraq.

To help redress the 50 per cent decline in Iraqi major crop production in the past 20 years, 27 Iraqi agricultural scientists are being trained in advanced integrated plant disease management (IPDM) at the Institute of Agriculture (IOA) at The University of Western Australia (UWA).

The University of Western Australia is to establish an International Centre for Plant Breeding Education and Research.

The centre will be launched today, Friday 29 August at 4pm.

UWA Vice-Chancellor Professor Alan Robson said the centre would play a vital role in addressing the looming global shortage in plant breeding expertise.

"There is growing recognition that there is a need to develop rapid crop breeding skills to help us adapt to climate change and to secure the world's food supplies," he said.

William Erskine, Assistant Director General (Research) at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Syria for the last seven years, has commenced as Director of  the Centre for Legumes In Mediterranean Agriculture (CLIMA) as it consolidates its third phase as a research centre within the University of Western Australia (UWA).

UK born, Professor Erskine completed a Bachelor of Arts in 1973, a Masters of Agriculture in 1976 and a PhD (University of Cambridge, Department of Applied Biology) in 1979.

Aquaculture and native fish breeding, alternative oilseeds, salt tolerant wheat, new legumes, emus and game birds, turf and super brassicas were topics on the menu at the 2008 Agriculture Open Day held by The University of Western Australia (UWA) Institute of Agriculture (IOA).

Declining global biodiversity, which threatens plant genetic diversity and therefore the raw materials humans rely on for food, fibre, fuel, medicine and industrial products, has led to a far ranging collaborative research project between The University of Western Australia (UWA) and Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) in the Sultanate of Oman.

Frontiers in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management were the themes for eight presentations by postgraduate research students from the four schools within the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (FNAS), The University of Western Australia (UWA).

Yesterday, at the opening of the 2008 UWA Institute of Agriculture Postgraduate Showcase, Professor Don Markwell, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Education, said UWA was deeply committed to fostering research and the event highlighted recent developments and brought together staff, students, industry and potential employers.

Resource economics, using mathematical models and numbers to investigate farming and environmental problems, could provide a simple procedure for summarising multiple physical, biochemical and biological parameters into a single soil quality index.

People say a “bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”, but try masturbating a two metre tall, 120 kilogram male ostrich with powerful legs and toenails and you’ve got a challenge on your hands.

Researchers in the School of Animal Biology at The University of Western Australia (UWA) have achieved a world-first by developing animal and human-friendly methods for semen collection and artificial insemination in ostriches.

Quantifying how well cereals, such as barley and wheat, can tolerate drought can be a measure of their true value to dryland agricultural systems, such as those in Western Australia and Iran.

Although hemispheres apart, there are similarities and some of these were recently assessed by Iranian PhD scholar Shahab Maddah-Hosseini while in WA on a six month ATSE Crawford Fund training award from August 2007 to January 2008.

Chromosomal regions conferring zinc efficiency in barley, recently identified by three WA researchers, could have important implications for improving the zinc status of the human diet.

Behzad Sadeghzadeh, PhD student and Professor Zed Rengel, both of the School of Earth and Geographical Sciences, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (FNAS) at The University of Western Australia (UWA), worked with Dr Chengdao Li from the Department of Agriculture and Food WA (DAFWA) on the project.

The Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology (AIAST) recently awarded top honours for scientific excellence in agriculture to the University of Western Australia (UWA) animal science PhD student Ms Joanne Elliott and Department of Agriculture and Food (DAFWA) research officer Ms Neroli Smith as joint winners of the Young Professionals in Agriculture award. 

While world supplies of natural sandalwood may be dwindling, women can still buy perfumes, such as Obsession by Calvin Klein and Opium by Yves St Laurent, which contain the essential oil, thanks to researchers such as Chris Jones, a PhD candidate in the School of Plant Biology at The University of Western Australia (UWA).

Once widespread throughout southern WA, but almost wiped out in the grainbelt due to clearing for farmland, sandalwood, Santalum spicatum and it’s northern relative, S. album, are making a comeback as plantation trees.

“In WA’s Kununurra area close to 2000 hectares of Santalum album  have been planted and more than  4000 hectares of S. spicatum have been planted in the wheatbelt area of southern WA,” Mr Jones said.

Researchers from the School of Plant Biology at The University of Western Australia (UWA) and Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia (DAFWA) have identified useful sources of resistance to white rust in Brassica juncea mustard germplasm sourced from Australia, China and India.

White rust affects cruciferous plants, which include the cabbage family, and the infection can be local, appearing as white pustules on leaves, stems and floral parts, or systemic, as abnormal distorted growth of stems, pods and flowers, which is commonly referred to as stagheads. Flowers displaying staghead formation are sterile.

Eight PhD students from four schools within the Institute of Agriculture at the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (FNAS) at the University of Western Australia (UWA) recently presented their research to an audience of 60 in a post-graduate showcase, ‘Frontiers in Agriculture and Resource Management’.

Focussing on innovative land management and animal production systems, as well as plant production for the future, the sessions were an opportunity to showcase high quality research and for students to interact with the industry and potential employers.

Growers and people working in agribusiness who have ever yearned for computer access to Green Manure or Lime Calculators or just a down-to-earth look at soil properties in their region of WA need look no further.

Dr Daniel Murphy from the School of Earth and Geographical Sciences and Institute of Agriculture at the University of Western Australia (UWA) has launched a free interactive website designed with such clients in mind.

Canola breeders will soon know for the first time exactly how host resistance in their varieties responds to the fungal parasite that causes blackleg disease of canola crops across Australia.

The most damaging disease of canola worldwide, blackleg caused the total collapse of WA’s canola industry in the 1970s and remains the number one threat to canola production.

The University of Western Australia (UWA) Institute of Agriculture post-doctoral researcher, Dr Hua Li said canola breeders and growers had not known how the blackleg parasite overcame resistance.

Consumers want clean, green and ethical meat products and maintaining the integrity of the sheepmeat industry is a challenge the Institute of Agriculture at The University of Western Australian (UWA) is successfully addressing.

Growers, researchers and industry representatives recently attended a clean, green and ethical industry forum at UWA to discuss innovations in animal production to meet consumer expectations, with a strong focus on the sheep industry.

UWA Institute of Agriculture Director, Professor Kadambot Siddique said consumers no longer wanted only nutritious and quality meat products, but those from animals raised in sustainable, animal friendly environments and not fed antibiotics or artificial hormones.

Juggling work commitments and study has paid off for three University of Western Australia (UWA) post-graduate students who recently completed their theses with the Western Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative (WAHRI).

David Minkey, Catherine Borger and David Ferris were granted study leave from the Department of Agriculture and Food WA (DAFWA) to complete their PhDs with WAHRI.

A new approach to fertiliser management that investigates how different wheat and canola genotypes respond to fertilisers will help graingrowers develop better nutrient management practices and reduce the financial and environmental costs of wasted fertiliser.

Recognising that fertiliser is a graingrower’s greatest single expense, with annual farm input cost at 16 percent, the Crop Nutrition group at The University of Western Australia (UWA), led by Professor Zed Rengel, is examining the optimal management of potassium (K), nitrogen (N), sulphur (S) and phosphorus (P) for wheat, barley and canola.

International collaboration can help combat climate change and WA and Chinese researchers are joining forces to improve climate adaptation strategies and pass on the subsequent benefits to growers.
 
As part of a A$1.9 million project, the University of Western Australia (UWA) Institute of Agriculture is collaborating with China’s Lanzhou University on a sustainability initiative for dry and cold ecosystems, using west China as a model.

When the current moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops is lifted, The University of Western Australia (UWA) has GM lupin lines with superior seed quality and yield readily available for wider testing and evaluation in the WA grainbelt.

According to UWA Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis Director, Professor Craig Atkins, sustaining cereal production through rotating legumes drove the UWA GM lupin breeding program, which commenced in 1992.

Collaborating with leading Chinese and Indian canola scientists in rapeseed breeding, pathology and agronomy could greatly benefit Australia’s oilseed industry.

In particular, WA growers may profit from India’s shatter-resistant pod research and China’s successful Sclerotinia resistance research.

Wallace Cowling, Associate Professor at The University of Western Australia (UWA) Institute of Agriculture and School of Plant Biology, said international collaboration could improve varieties and also canola biotechnology.

Combining no tillage farming and integrated weed management (IWM) strategies can reduce graingrower reliance on herbicides and help create long term sustainable and profitable cropping practices.

The University of Western Australia (UWA) Institute of Agriculture graduate, Frank D’Emden, won the 2006 Australian Agriculture and Resource Economics Society (AARES) masters thesis prize for a study on southern Australian grain growers’ adoption of conservation tillage.

Improving genetics can shift grain from bulk commodity to value added opportunity, enhance profit margins and help differentiate grain products in a competitive global market place.

Profitable and sustainable grain production results from developing new varieties, using molecular markers to track traits, capitalising on new market opportunities and collaborating internationally.

Increasing feed intake and synchronising merino ewes’ ovulation could stimulate a 20 per cent increase in twin lambings and lift the 380,000 tonnes of lamb produced annually across Australia.

With WA’s sheep flock at 25 million, the lowest in almost 70 years, reproductive research to assist farmers increase twin births will also boost incomes.

It smells like red wine and feels like sludge when wet, but the cotton-like cellulose dress ‘grown’ at the Institute of Agriculture, University of Western Australia (UWA), fits snugly as a second skin.

The unique bacterial fermented dress, made from wine, could mark the start of fabrics fermented by living microbes entering the $229.5 billion per annum Australian fabric manufacturing industry.

With an abundance of tertiary disciplines available, students can find it hard to choose an undergraduate degree that will set them up with exciting, fulfilling careers.

Tarnya Fowler and Natalie Maguire made the right choice studying at the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of Western Australia (UWA), securing good jobs before graduating and now working in WA’s $2 billion grain industry.

It may seem odd that the best way for newborns to survive is for their mothers to eat their way out of house and home, but for Australia’s sheep this may help boost their flock beyond 100 million.
 
A revolutionary grazing technique trialled by scientists at the Institute of Agriculture, University of Western Australia (UWA), could help Australia’s sheep flock meet the growing demand for prime lamb by increasing the 381,839 tonnes (05/06) it annually produces.

Innovation in legume science and technology remains the focus of the Centre for Legumes In Mediterranean Agriculture (CLIMA) as it moves into its third phase as a research centre within the University of Western Australia (UWA).

CLIMA has been headquartered at UWA’s Crawley campus since commencing in 1992 as a Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) and transforming in 2000, after its CRC phase ended, into a research alliance between the WA Department of Agriculture and Food (DAFWA), UWA, CSIRO and Murdoch University.

The current memorandum of understanding between CLIMA and the four partners concludes June 30.

A newly developed pesticide risk assessment method could determine whether climate change will increase or decrease the risk of pesticides leaching through the soil profile and contaminating ground water and the environment.

Rainstorms could be washing pesticides out the farm gate and across the countryside, contaminating water bodies in their wake.

This is a concern, considering that about 31,000 tonnes of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides are applied annually across Australia.

Love is in the air at the University of Western Australia (UWA) and it is the good
‘old-fashioned’ kind that hasn’t been chemically induced and, best of all, it will keep the hormones away from the dinner table.

And it isn’t in the student body, but in the sheep at the UWA Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences School of Animal Biology.
 
Associate lecturer Dr Penny Hawken is exploring the possibility of controlling sheep reproductive cycles using pheromones (the smell of a ram) instead of hormone treatments, which will help increase the 382,000 tonnes of lamb and 244,000 tonnes of mutton Australia produces, which equates to seven per cent of the world’s supply.

While growing grain in WA is always a risky business, especially so this year, with the drought cutting yields and locusts threatening to cut a swathe through crops, growers also remain unsure of how best to maximise returns.

This year, perhaps more so than most, every dollar counts and due to the current volatile grain trading environment, growers are exploring non-traditional grain trading mediums.

Australia’s 6.6 million tonne barley industry would not be where it is today without a key project in WA that has more than 11,000 lines, comprising wild types, landraces, varieties and breeding lines, in its general barley collection.

The 30 year old barley germplasm enhancement project is located at the University of WA (UWA) Research Station in Shenton Park and has contributed to the development of several successful barely varieties in WA and nationally.

Science and technology based agriculture will play a major role in meeting the world’s increasing demand for food, but who will become the next generation of Australian scientists?

The University of Western Australia (UWA) Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (FNAS) believes the best way to encourage more students into science is to give them a practical arena for their studies, and, with this in mind, set up a viticulture project with secondary schools.

As part of this collaborate project, FNAS this week showcased a small vineyard, at the UWA Shenton Park field station, where students from various secondary schools can utilise the science they learn in the classroom to grow grapes and produce wine.