News

Science has once again validated Indigenous wisdom by identifying a rare, healthy sugar in native stingless bee honey that is not found in any other food. University of Queensland organic chemist Associate Professor Mary Fletcher said Indigenous peoples had long known that native stingless bee honey had special health properties.

There are several diseases and other physiological disorders of avocado fruit impacting the quality of product and eating experience for the consumer. Trees and fruit are pushed to their limits in terms of yields, productivity, biotic stress (diseases and insect pressure) and abiotic stress (floods, drought, low soil fertility etc).

Barley is known as a fairly competitive crop, but not all genotypes are equal when it comes to weed suppression and weed tolerance.

Without the food traditions and heritage of Europe, where provenance is integral to marketing – think hams from Parma, Italy, or cheese from Cheddar, England – Australia is turning to science to identify, verify and tell the stories of its own unique food provenance. 

The devastating Banana Bunchy Top Virus nearly wiped out Queensland’s banana industry over 100 years ago. But an international team of researchers, aided by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and led by The University of Queensland’s Associate Professor John Thomas, have developed promising strategies to protect this key food source for communities in sub-Saharan Africa and prevent further spread of the disease.

InterDrought VI Congress proceedings are now freely available online for the scientific community. The website includes 43 presentations, 75 abstracts, 35 posters and a complete book of abstracts from the InterDrought VI Congress scheduled to be held in Mexico City in March 2020. To date over 10,000 members of the scientific community have been invited to watch presentations and read the proceedings online.

Exploiting quirks in plant reproduction could boost yields in two staple crops, sorghum and cowpea, for crop farming communities in sub-Saharan Africa (SA). That’s the endgame of Hy-Gain, a multi-million dollar international collaborative research project led by University of Queensland’s Professor Anna Koltunow, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Animal science researchers say keeping the spotlight firmly on improving cow fertility and reducing cow and calf losses in harsh environments will continue to build northern cattle live weight production and efficiencies. More than ten years of research has substantially improved understanding of the drivers of the 10 to 15 per cent calf loss that occurs on average between confirmed pregnancy and weaning in northern Australia.

The University of Queensland, The University of Melbourne, the SunPork Group and DSM, together with support from the Australasian Pork Research Institute Limited (APRIL), have secured an Australian Research Council-Linkage grant exploring the topic, ‘How to make antimicrobials in pig feed redundant, naturally’.

An Indigenous fruit which is one of the earliest known plant foods eaten in Australia could be the next big thing in the bush foods industry.
The University of Queensland research team is led by bush foods researcher Associate Professor Yasmina Sultanbawa, who said the green plum not only tasted delicious but contained one of the highest known folate levels of any fruit on the commercial market.

Median calf wastage between confirmed pregnancy and weaning in northern Australia is 10-15%, depending on region. Overall loss is estimated in the vicinity of 1M calves in Australia annually. A similar situation exists through all tropical beef systems globally. Diseases and animal issues cause some of the loss, but the majority of wastage is associated with poor pregnant cow nutrition and high environmental stress.

Jane Ray, a PhD Candidate at the University of Queensland, travelled to Costa Rica as part of a project to identify and manage bacterial wilt diseases in bananas after being awarded a Crawford Fund Student Award by the Crawford Fund's Northern Territory Committee. She was supported in-country by the University of Costa Rica.

Hotspot areas in Australia’s wheatbelt have been identified that are especially prone to a climate-induced grain quality defect.

The May 2020 national wheat outlook is predicting an overall average yield across Australia’s wheat belt but with significant regional variability, according to crop-climate researchers at The University of Queensland.

A project to protect the Australian lucerne seed industry from possible exotic disease incursions including alfalfa dwarf disease (ADD) has scanned lucerne paddocks for viruses associated with the damaging disease.

To date, the most promising rumen fluid sample to overcome Pimelea toxicity, came from Dorper sheep. More rumen fluid samples are still to be tested.
21 bacterial species have been isolated from the rumen fluid samples. The most promising of these are being tested for their ability to degrade the toxin in Pimelea, which is simplexin. Over time, the most promising bacterial species may be developed into a rumen inoculum (drench).

CRISPR gene editing technology has the potential to dramatically increase the number of traits that can be introduced into agricultural crops, far quicker and cheaper than genetically modified (GM) technology has been able to achieve, according to Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) director of crop science, Professor Ian Goodwin.

A new crop is making its way onto Australian farms as more severe drought causes a rethink of the crops best suited for cultivation in the northern growing region.