Key points

• Dr Joe Panozzo and Emeritus Professor Les Copeland AM have both won the Guthrie Award
• The award is granted to an outstanding grain scientist to honour pioneering cereal chemist Frederick Guthrie’s contribution to wheat research in Australia
• It is the Australasian Grain Science Association’s highest accolade.

The Australasian Grain Science Association (AGSA) faced a quandary when awarding its highest accolade recently. It could not separate two worthy applicants.

Every three years, the Guthrie Award is granted to an outstanding grain scientist to honour pioneering cereal chemist Frederick Guthrie’s contribution to wheat research in Australia.

However, 2020 awards committee chair and former wheat breeder Dr Lindsay O’Brien had a problem: “We had two very eminent scientists in the running, and we could not separate them. With much thought we decided to honour them both. It is not something we have done before.”

The two winners are Dr Joe Panozzo from Agriculture Victoria and Emeritus Professor Les Copeland from the University of Sydney.

Dr Joe Panozzo

Dr Panozzo began his career at the Victorian Wheat Research Institute in Horsham as a wheat quality scientist. He quickly developed an interest in developing high-throughput methods to determine quality traits in wheat.

Initial research into the field of near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy used rudimentary instruments compared to current technologies. However, Dr Panozzo quicky understood their worth.

“I realised that by applying non-destructive testing, such as NIR, plant breeding efficiencies could be achieved,” he says. He later applied these techniques to malting barley and canola.

It is an interest Dr Panozzo has maintained, leading to the development of multi-spectral image analysis research and, more recently, NIR-hyperspectral imaging.

His work has allowed breeding programs to develop germplasm selection strategies that offer a more effective measurement of quality traits earlier in their programs.

Dr Panozzo says the future could see these technologies in growers’ hands – that is, portable sensors equipped with algorithms previously only used in laboratories.

“Growers will be able to measure grain quality on-farm and make informed decisions on how to market grain to optimise remuneration.

“The application of sensors, plus the ability to incorporate trait-specific algorithms into portable devices, will alter how the grains and food industries carry out business. It will assist with food traceability, which means consumers will know more about their food. This would give them a greater appreciation of the hard work and commitment growers have to the land and environment.”

Reflecting on his career to date, Dr Panozzo says he has been lucky to work in an industry where the relationship between plant breeders and chemists, such as himself, has endured and allowed for such success in variety development.

He draws parallels between those relationships and those of Australia’s wheat industry pioneers, plant breeder William Farrer and chemist Frederick Guthrie.

“The common aim, to understand the complexities of plant genetics and abiotic factors on the expressed phenotype of the grain, is often categorised as ‘quality’. This relationship dates to the 1890s when self-taught wheat breeder William Farrer and chemist Fredrick Guthrie aimed to improve the milling and baking quality of wheat in Australia.

“It can be argued the current quality targets – namely, grain size, milling yield, flour and dough rheology, which are all associated with specific end-use products – are not too dissimilar to the breeding objectives faced by Farrer and Guthrie in the late 1890s.

“More than 130 years after Guthrie and Farrer first collaborated to improve the quality of wheat, the relationship between chemist and plant breeder continues with the same goal.”

The Guthrie Award complements Dr Panozzo’s 2015 award of the Farrer Memorial Medal for his contribution to the Australian wheat industry.

Les Copeland

Emeritus Professor Les Copeland’s Guthrie Award win marked two major milestones in his life – 50 years since being awarded his PhD from the University of Sydney and 50 years of marriage.

When Emeritus Professor Copeland began his biochemistry journey at the university, firstly as a student and later as dean, he believed a strong background in biochemistry would be important for the future. He was right.

Since those early days he has held research appointments at Yale University, the University of Buffalo and the University of California, Davis, in the US, and at the Australian National University.

As an agricultural chemist with academic interests at the interface between food science and agricultural production, he is internationally renowned.

Emeritus Professor Les Copeland has won the Guthrie Award, the Australasian Grain Science Association’s highest accolade. Photo: Supplied

His research, which has included work on the origins of the human diet, has helped to develop a greater understanding of quality requirements for specific end-uses and nutrition, and how quality is influenced by interactions between genetics, environment, crop management and processing.

With five decades of important research behind him, Emeritus Professor Copeland says crop improvement through plant breeding is undergoing its greatest rate of transitional change now.

“There are two drivers for this – biotechnology and digital and data capabilities. Advances in genomics have opened huge opportunities for plant and animal improvements and are enabling us to understand how microbial communities contribute to soil health. Similarly, transitional changes are occurring apace throughout the post-farm food supply chain.

“Advances in sensor technologies have led to a great capacity to collect data, and with rapid developments in data science increasing accessibility and discoverability, the scope for change is unlimited.

“Great breakthroughs are possible. There is the chance to answer questions that we have only dreamt about.”

Emeritus Professor Copeland says this includes the key question: what is the yield potential of crops?

“Over the 10,000 to 12,000 years of agriculture, a lot of germplasm has been ignored as we chased yield or other characteristics. So, there may still be ways to find answers for stress, drought tolerance or plant disease issues.

“These are big questions that we have the tools now to approach.”

This new toolkit is important as scientists address resilience and maintaining quality in a changing climate, plus social licence. “We’ve arrived at a point where the challenge is not so much about increasing food production but doing it in a better way.”

An awards presentation is planned for early 2022.

More information: Dr Joe Panozzo, joe.panozzo@agriculture.vic.gov.au; Emeritus Professor Les Copeland, les.copeland@sydney.edu.au; Australasian Grain Science Association