Wheat and barley that can
cope with extreme environmental conditions, including drought,
salinity and frost, could result from research at the
Australian Centre for Plant
Functional Genomics (ACPFG).
The Minister for Education,
Science and Training, the Hon Julie Bishop MP, and Parliamentary
Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and
Forestry, the Hon Sussan Ley MP, today announced an additional
investment of $21 million over five years in the ACPFG.
The Centre—established in 2002 as
a research-based company with an initial five-year cash
investment of $27 million from the
Australian Research Council
(ARC), the Grains Research &
Development Corporation (GRDC) and the South Australian
Government—undertakes vital research into stresses on plants
that affect Australian agriculture.
"Environmental stresses such as
drought, salinity and frost are a major cause of loss of cereal
crop yield and quality throughout the world," Minister Bishop
said.
"It is hoped that research
conducted at the ACPFG will uncover novel characteristics that
Australian breeders can use to develop wheat and barley
varieties with increased stress resistance, which will lead to
economic benefits."
Ms Ley said that the world-class
researchers at the ACPFG were developing new genetic marker
tools to increase the efficiency and speed of developing new and
improved varieties of wheat and barley, and making them
available to the marketplace.
"In the longer term, scientists
will use more advanced plants to isolate stress resistance genes
that could be used to develop transgenic crop plants of even
higher quality," she said.
The additional funding from ARC
and GRDC is $11 million and $10 million respectively.
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Australian Centre for Plant
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