October 16, 2002

Forget outcrossing F2 progeny, what the Australian plant industry needs is outcrossing scientists.

Plant breeding, leading to yield and quality increments which have doubled the annual value of Australia’s grain industry in the past 10 years, to more than $7 billion, has resulted largely from crossing. Similar cross-pollination of ideas among scientists could drive comparable growth.

WA recently hosted 380 of the world’s premier plant breeders at the 12^th Australasian Plant Breeding Conference (APBC), to discuss the science which must feed the world.

Through the Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC), growers and the Federal Government supported the event because it helped assemble substantial intellectual muscle from around the world on our doorstep to exchange ideas on plant breeding.

Plant breeding, of course, covers a range of diverse interests, from grain to horticulture, and it was this broad spectrum which helped put every aspect of plant breeding under the microscope, because scientists from each discipline viewed things with the benefit of different perspectives.

When such a radical exchange of ideas and views occurs, we create an environment for the greatest innovations to develop, because fundamental shifts yield the most dramatic results.

Such shifts in thinking occurred in the GRDC-sponsored Master Class in Population Plant Breeding, at the Conference, when Associate Professor Duane Falk of Canada demonstrated how dramatic improvements in yield and disease resistance of barley could be obtained after 10 years of rapid recurrent selection cycles.

‘Outside the square’ thinking was also on display when conference delegates travelled to the Wongan Hills Research Station to inspect wheat, barley and lupin trials. Displaying the Western Australian Department of Agriculture’s work on little seen rough-seeded lupin was Dr Kedar Adhikari.

One rough-seeded lupin species, Atlanticus, which originates from Morocco, shapes as a short season legume option of the future. With good protein levels and an ability to fill pods rapidly under diminishing moisture, it would appeal to many Western Australian and South Australian growers. The crop has been domesticated by plant breeders in Western Australia during the past 20 years to create a new crop for the world, right here in Australia.

While this research is at an early stage, the project reflects an open mindedness and farsightedness which augurs well for the diversity of the grains industry and is an example of the lateral thinking needed to ensure our scientists are achieving the best results.

Conferences such as the APBC help cultivate this thinking and ensure science continues to cross new boundaries.