CANBERRA, Aug. 14 (Xinhua/APP): Australian scientists are leading efforts to protect grain growers from frost damage, costing the wheat industry over 360 million Australian dollars (about 235 million U.S. dollars) a year.
Field trials are being combined with laboratory and controlled-environment studies to develop genetic solutions to frost, according to a statement released Wednesday by Australia’s Charles Sturt University (CSU).
Crop scientists are studying novel wheat germplasm in fields and frost-simulation chambers to uncover genetic links to frost damage, which has risen by 30 percent in southern Australia since 2000, with climate models predicting both frequency and severity will intensify, it said.
“This presents a challenge to breeders to improve crop tolerance to stress and for industry to integrate new genetic potential into farming systems to continually adapt to climate change, thus increasing productivity,” said CSU Senior Lecturer in Crop Science Felicity Harris.
Plants time their growth and flowering to seasonal patterns in temperature, light and moisture, but frost can disrupt this, damaging tissues from cell to canopy and hindering development, researchers said.
The project, now in its second year of field validation, aims to equip plant breeders with knowledge to develop frost-tolerant varieties and tools to help growers reduce future frost damage, Harris said.
“In the long run, this will contribute to reducing risk associated with frost and improved crop productivity for Australian farmers,” she said.
The CSU heads the New South Wales arm of three national research projects funded by the Grains Research and Development Corporation and led by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia’s national science agency, with partners nationwide.