Under the LED lights in a glasshouse
at the University of Queensland in
Brisbane, these international
barley varieties are thriving.
They're being sampled for disease
resistance, with researchers
keen to establish how they hold up
against Australia's major foliar
pathogens.
With the increasing
use of stubble retention
practices by growers, we've seen
an increase in these pathogens.
As they increase, they also
evolve a lot quicker and that's
why we really need to look at
the pathogen host interaction
and then also identify
resistance that could be utilised
to provide better varieties to
growers.
In an effort to boost the
productivity and profitability of
barley cropping systems, the GRDC
is investing in cutting edge genetic
research to fast track new varieties
with improved foliar pathogen
resistance.
So our research program is
essentially aiming at improving
disease resistance against major
foliar diseases in barley, including
net form net blotch, spot form net blotch and scald.
And the idea is basically to develop
novel tools that breeding programs
can use to make more rapid
gains in terms of accumulating
or stacking up as many good
resistance genes as possible.
Dr Kai Voss-Fels and his research
team are harnessing advanced
computer capabilities and artificial
intelligence to help determine
optimal combinations of resistance
genes.
A process he believes will shave
three years off conventional
breeding programs.
Have a look at this one here, for
example. So that's that's a diverse
family succession from southern
Spain.
Can see has a really
black awns. Yeah, it's actually
quite an interesting one.
To help identify new and diverse
sources of resistance, the team
has cast their net wide,
examining thousands of exotic barley
lines from more than 60 countries
around the world.
What we're going to do is we grow
them, we take leaf samples, we
extract the DNA and then
use that information along
with phenotypic screenings
for disease response, which is
carried out by partners of ours
across the country, and then use
that information to track down
resistance genes across the genome.
Once we've got that information,
once we've got that reference data
set built, as we call it, we're
going to use that and feed this into
artificial intelligence and
simulation-based approaches
to essentially work out what
the best combinations of lines
might be that would stack up
as many good genes
or resistance alleles as
possible.
This data will give Australian
barley breeders the information they
need to develop elite varieties
with durable resistance against
multiple pathogens.
While it's far from a
straightforward process, they
started with a strong knowledge base
thanks to the findings of the now
complete barley foliar pathogen
project.
This project was developed initially
to look at characterising
the barley foliar pathogens and just
understanding the interaction
between the pathogen and the host
somewhat better.
Dr. Lisle Snyman was part of the
national project, she says
that in recent years there's been a
surprising increase in spot
blotch samples collected from
central Queensland, despite
the recent dry conditions.
With the
increasing production in central
Queensland and the increase that
we see in the spot blotch pathogen
in those areas.
We realised that we do need to
look a bit more at understanding
that pathogen.
And we've been through a drought
period, if the conditions
change and we have more favourable
conditions, we do expect to
see a bigger increase
in the presence of the spot blotch
pathogen in central Queensland and
its impact on barley production.
In addition to understanding the
pathogens across the growing
regions, the project also
screened more than 10,000 barley
varieties for new sources of
resistance, with a handful
of promising lines passed on to Kai
and his team to investigate further.
We are in the really fortunate
situation that due to the previous
investment of GRDC, we
know an awful lot about the complex
interactions between barley and
major foliar diseases.
So we actually we identified
a couple of lines or populations
that might carry really interesting
resistance genes.
And we're going to use those lines
specifically in order to work
out which the underlying genes
actually are. And then we're going
to use that information in the
process going forward.
It's a promising sign that growers
can expect new varieties in
the not too distant future.
In the meantime, Lisle says there
are a couple of best management
practices all growers should be
doing to reduce foliar disease
risks.
It is really important
that you don't plant barley on
barley and have some rotation
practice in place.
We've also seen through this project
that if a particular varieties
is grown over large areas in
consecutive years, then
your pathogen's kind
of evolve and it just acquires
higher virulence for those
particular varieties.
We really would like to
see growers use seed dressing
on an annual basis because that
would protect them against
early onset of net form of
net blotch.
It does provide protection against
smuts, which is becoming a bit more
of a problem, and then also
early onset of powdery mildew.