A key research focus of the Centre for Crop Health is management of soil-borne and foliar diseases of crops using genetic, genomic, phenotypic and pre-breeding approaches. The aim of our projects in this area is to reduce the economic impact that these diseases have in Australian farming systems and to broaden the scientific knowledge of these diseases world-wide. In Australia, soil-borne diseases such as root-lesion nemtodes and crown rot alone can cause up to $200M in crop damage each year. Both winter (breadwheat, durum, barley, chickpea) and summer (fieldpea, mungbean, peanut) crops are investigated. Strategic research focus areas include:
- the characterisation of the response of genotypes to soil-borne and foliar diseases in glasshouse and field trials
- phenotyping of diverse germplasm collections, breeding lines and cultivars to identify new sources of resistance and tolerance to diseases caused by fungi, nematodes and bacteria
- understanding the genetic basis and mechanisms of resistance and tolerance
- pre-breeding to introgress sources of resistance and tolerance into adapted germplasm
- development of rapid reliable and efficient phenotyping methodologies for soilborne diseases, including remote sensing technologies
- soilborne disease interactions in Australian farming systems
Projects
- Assessing collections of wild chickpea relatives for resistance to root-lesion nematodes
- Genetic control of nematode species affecting major crops - Germplasm enhancement for nematode control in cereals & pulses
- Development of tools to accelerate nematode resistance gene deployment
- Integrated Genetic Solutions to crown rot in wheat
- Durum crown rot benchmarking for improved grower access to durum varieties with greater crown rot resistance
- Improved genetic solutions for management of yellow spot in wheat
- NVT Pathology Services for generation of cultivar disease resistance ratings 2019-2023
- Development of rapid phenotyping and genotyping tools for selection of key agronomic and quality traits in the Australian peanut breeding program
- Soilborne disease interactions in Australian farming systems
- Genome-wide association mapping studies to support mungbean breeding for resistance to tan spot and powdery mildew
- Genetics of root-lesion nematode Pratylenchus thornei resistance in mungbean (Vigna radiata)