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Plant Breeding, 02 Dec 2024
First GM food crop listed
A canola variety modified to tolerate the herbicide glyphosate has been placed on the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) GMO Register. It is the first genetically modified (GM) food crop to be listed. GM and genetically engineered wheat is also gaining momentum.
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Plant Breeding, 26 Nov 2024
Gains in barley heat tolerance prove possible
Heat stress can mean barley crops are downgraded from malting to feed quality. This impacts price, resulting in up to a 30 per cent drop in profit. When combined with drought stress, heat is the largest factor in both the loss of quality premiums and yield reductions. Professor Chengdao Li leads a GRDC investment that investigated the genetic response to heat stress in barley and the potential to increase the crop’s tolerance levels.
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Plant Breeding, 21 Nov 2024
Yield advantages with new chickpea heat tolerance traits
High temperatures during chickpea’s critical flowering and pod-fill period reduce seed size and number. To mitigate these yield losses, a proof-of-concept study searched for novel heat-tolerance traits within the broader chickpea gene pool. The project is headed by Professor Richard Trethowan, director of the Plant Breeding Institute at the University of Sydney.
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Plant Breeding, 19 Nov 2024
New ways to select for heat tolerance in wheat
Trait discovery work in wheat has identified new indicators for heat tolerance and efficient selection technology for use by breeders for rapid progression into new varieties and on to Australian paddocks
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Plant Breeding, 14 Nov 2024
AI fast-tracking wheat heat tolerance gains
Increasing temperatures and variable environments are challenging. Effective field-based strategies for assessing heat tolerance phenotypes are needed. GRDC scholar Rebecca Thistlethwaite at the University of Sydney has developed a strategy that uses a three-tiered approach.
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Plant Breeding, 24 Oct 2024
Generational shift supports gene editing
The increasing acceptance of gene editing for food crops is paving the way for broader use of advanced technologies to enhance agricultural production, according to Professor Barry Pogson, director of the ARC Training Centre for Future Crop Development. In his keynote address at the Australian Grains Industry Conference in Melbourne this August, Professor Pogson emphasized the importance of public support for genetic techniques that can boost crop performance. He noted that while regulatory barriers often slow the adoption of new crop varieties, rising consumer acceptance could accelerate approval processes, driving innovation in the agricultural sector.
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Plant Breeding, 10 Oct 2024
Genetic mechanism unlocks a key secret behind disease infection in crops
CCDM researchers have unravelled a key genetic mechanism behind the way pathogens infect crops, leading to new strategies for breeding resistant crop varieties against other pathogens carrying the same genetic mechanism.
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Plant Breeding, 26 Sep 2024
Genebanks made to order for the 21st century
Upgrades to the Australian Grains Genebank have created an integrated pipeline delivering the genetic resources breeders need to put advanced crop varieties into growers’ paddocks. This upgrade is being undertaken as a $30 million, five-year co-investment by GRDC and the Victorian Government from 2022 to 2027. Recently completed was an $8.8 million infrastructure upgrade to Agriculture Victoria’s Horsham SmartFarm, also as a co-investment. The upgrade aims to transform the AGG from a traditional genebank into a bio-digital resource centre, where digital and genomic information is used to make the plant genetic resources conserved within the AGG even more accessible and useful to the grains industry.
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Plant Breeding, 04 Jun 2024
Re-imagining heat tolerance traits in wheat – part 2
New ways to select for heat tolerance in wheat are under development in four new projects that are mining wheat’s heat-responsive biochemical processes using advanced phenotyping technology
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Plant Breeding, 14 May 2024
Wheat varieties of the future edging closer
The Agricultural Biotechnology Council of Australia is an industry initiative established to increase public awareness of, and encourage informed debate and decision-making about, gene technology. This edition of Gene scene reports on the latest developments in wheat breeding.