creating virus-free

WA firm creating virus-free wheat

Laboratories at Murdoch's State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre are the home of sophisticated genetic engineering experiments to create new strains of wheat.

West Australian gene technology company Grain Biotech Australia is spearheading the next generation of wheat hybridisation in Australia that will produce crops that are resistant to viruses, salt and drought. New wheat varieties will also produce grain with improved starch composition and other characteristics that will improve their nutritional and manufacturing qualities.

Next generation: Stewart Washer (left) and Rob Bower with wheat shoots at the Murdoch laboratories.
One project is to create a genetically-engineered hybrid that resists a major virus that affects wheat world wide.

In conjunction with the University of Helsinki, researchers Rob Bower and Stewart Washer, both from Biotech, are getting genes from the virus itself (supplied by Helsinki) and inserting them into wheat cells, producing an immunised plant. The presence of the virus gene invokes the plant's defence mechanisms which prevent the production of viral proteins in the plant. The process is analogous to immunisation against diseases in humans.

Dr Bower said the virus was transmitted by aphids, requiring a large proportion of the European grain crop to be sprayed with insecticide each year.

"With a virus-resistant hybrid there will be less need for insecticide which will reduce costs and be beneficial to the environment," he said.

"In parts of the US, where use of transgenic crops requiring greatly reduced quantities of insecticides is common, farmers have seen the return of non-pest insect species and associated birdlife to rural areas. Our aim is to bring similar benefits to Australian farmers and the Australian environment."