Australian canola farmers are one step closer to protecting their crops from a devastating disease thanks to a researcher from The University of Queensland.
Dr Jacqueline Batley, from the School of Land, Crop and Food Sciences, has been awarded a $70,000 2009 UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award to investigate why some canola crops can be attacked by the Blackleg fungal pathogen, and yet others remain completely unaffected.
The Research Excellence Award, which recognises outstanding performance and leadership potential in early career researchers, will allow Dr Batley to use the latest gene sequencing technologies to discover disease resistance genes in wild Brassica species.
“Many farmers are currently using chemicals to get rid of Blackleg or growing canola on the same area only once every 3 years, but it would be much better if the disease never infected the plants in the first place,” Dr Batley said.
Before the recent years of drought, Australia was exporting an average of 1.6 million tonnes of canola per year, which equated to over $500 million dollars per annum.
Even in good years, it is estimated that the Australian agricultural industry suffers, on average, a 15 percent loss in canola crops every year because of Blackleg disease.
“In some instances, it’s closer to 90 percent of the crop being wiped out because of Blackleg” she said.
The Australian Oilseeds Federations reports that Australia is currently the world’s second largest exporter of canola, second only to Canada.
Australia’s canola exports could be in even higher demand as the positive health attributes of canola oil become more recognised.
The research Dr Batley is undertaking also has the potential to be used as a model to understand plant-pathogen interactions in other major Australian crops.
Dr Batley is hopeful that the research she undertakes will also help reduce the impact of fungal disease in other species, such as wheat.
Amongst her list of credentials, Dr Batley, who obtained her PhD from the Institute of Arable Crop Research at Long Ashton in the UK, represents Australia on the steering committee for the Multinational Brassica Genome Project and currently holds a prestigious ARC QEII fellowship.
Media: Dr Jacqueline Batley (0423 841 669) or Shannon Price UQ Communications (3346 7660)
