Western Australia
February 23, 2009
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At
the Mike Carroll Travelling Fellowship award
presentation held at The University of Western Australia
(UWA) are Helen Carroll, Annaliese Mason, recipient of
the Mike Carroll Travelling Fellowship for 2008,
Professor Graeme Martin, Chair of Animal Science at UWA
and Professor Tony O’Donnell, Dean of the Faculty of
Natural and Agricultural Sciences at UWA. |
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.
“Recipients are chosen on their academic abilities, relevance of
studies to an important area of Australian broadacre
agriculture, their potential to benefit from the experience and
their enthusiasm to impart the findings of their travels to the
scientific, farming and wider community on their return to WA,”
Mrs Carroll said.
Ms Mason said abnormal chromosome associations in super Brassica
plants led to loss of fertility and instability in subsequent
generations, hence limiting development of this new species as a
promising oilseed crop, especially for marginal cropping land
with potential drought stress and poor soils.
Canola (Brassica napus) as a crop species is extremely inbred,
with little genetic diversity for breeders to use for future
crop improvement.
Canola, Indian mustard (Brassica juncea) and Ethiopian mustard
(Brassica carinata) are two-genome hybrid Brassica species.
In her PhD research at UWA, Ms Mason assessed the pollen of 84
plants from 12 cultivar/species crosses, establishing that most
first generation hybrids produced abnormal gametes.
To create a super Brassica plant which could make a positive
difference to Australian farming systems, she conducted a unique
crossing plan involving two generations of hybridisation and all
three species.
This resulted in canola with two genomes (sets of chromosomes
from different origins) and Indian mustard with two genomes,
giving a first generation hybrid which is crossed with Ethiopian
mustard with two genomes to produce a super Brassica plant with
three genomes.
“This super-Brassica, with three different genomes rather than
the naturally occurring one or two, has increased potential for
heterosis and hybrid vigour, greater tolerance of marginal
environments and increased growth and production,” Ms Mason
explained.
After initially enrolling at UWA in 2003 in the BSc (Genetics)
she changed in second year to a more flexible BSc with a double
major in botany and genetics.
“I enjoyed plant breeding and genetics units and was offered an
honours scholarship by the Value-Added Wheat CRC to characterise
progeny from a canola interspecific crossing
pre-breeding experiments, using molecular marker technologies,”
she said.
Her Honours supervisors were Associate Professor Wallace
Cowling, Dr Matt Nelson and Dr Guijun Yan.
Previous winners of the Mike Carroll Travelling Fellowship
include:
Inaugural winner, Martin
Vila Aiub: invited speaker to the 4th International Weed
Science Congress in Durban, South Africa.
Graeme Doole: went to University of California at Berkley,
with a focus on agricultural and research problems.
Christopher Jones: travelled to North America to investigate
oil production in sandalwood that might lead to the
development of a novel cropping system for WA farmers.
Shane Friesen: visited Rothamstead Research Station in the
UK, the world’s oldest active, agricultural research
station, where he was involved in the Resistance 2007
Conference.
Di Mayberry: attended international conferences in Beijing,
China and Thessaloniki, Greece.
Weihua Chen: spent three months at The University of
Adelaide, experimenting on transport of phosphate in plants
with world expert Professor Steve Tyerman.
Megan Chadwick: attended Utah State University, USA and
presented on behaviour based management of livestock on
farms at a conference.
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