A Murdoch University-based team of scientists has been awarded a $386,000 Federal Government grant to work on drought tolerance in sugarcane, the world’s leading industrial and biofuel crop.

NemGenix, Western Australia’s only genetically modified (GM) crop trait development company, received the grant under the Australian Government’s Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research ‘Climate Ready’ funding program which supports innovative solutions to climate change challenges.

Murdoch’s Professor of Agricultural Biotechnology Mike Jones, also Chief Scientific Officer of NemGenix, said that despite the enormous losses caused by plant parasitic nematodes, very little had been done to develop nematode- resistant crops.

“These small, worm-like organisms attack plant root systems, dramatically limiting water and nutrient uptake and annually causing $167 billion in losses globally across all crop species,” Professor Jones said.

“Agriculture has had to rely on control by highly toxic pesticides, many of which have now been banned, crop rotations and limited plant resistance genes, or otherwise has just tolerated the losses.”

Professor Jones’ team has already generated wheat plants designed to resist attack from the parasitic nematodes.

“The GM plants contain genes taken from the nematodes, which interfere with their metabolism and prevent them from thriving on the plants’ roots,” he said.

“NemGenix was originally established in 2006 to develop new forms of nematode control.

We will now use the federal grant to focus on developing GM resistance to nematodes in sugarcane, which is highly susceptible to plant parasitic nematodes.”

Professor Jones said improving yields could benefit both the food and biofuel industries and would help make production of bioethanol more cost effective.

He said adding one or two carefully chosen genes to sugarcane plants would not pose any danger to the environment or human health, and the effect on biodiversity was no different from that of conventional crops, all of which have been introduced into Australia.

（www.eduwo.com, Anna）