A joint project involving the Queensland Government, the University of Queensland, the University of Southern Queensland, the CSIRO, and the Grains Research and Development Corporation, is helping growers minimise the risk of frost, while continuing to search for a gene that will be resistant to extremely low temperatures.
University of Queensland research scientist, Dr Jack Christopher, said climate modelling of 60 years' worth of data has shown that while average temperatures have been increasing, the incidence and impact of frost has also increased during that period.
"One of the main factors causing that is the fact that the plants are actually growing a lot quicker in the warmer weather, so that when they're planted at what we think is the correct time, they're actually flowering too soon and are flowering during a much higher frost risk period than was intended," he said.
Frost damage costs Australian agriculture millions of dollars each year due to reduced yield.
"On average, we're losing around 10 per cent of the crop nationally, so that's a huge loss in terms of yield and in terms of dollars," Dr Christopher said.
"So if we've got 24 million tonnes of wheat in an average year, it may be $250 a tonne, that might be $6 billion worth of wheat, so 10 per cent of that is $600 million in an average year, so it's a huge loss."
The national research project involves field trials at an experimental farm near Toowoomba in southern Queensland, and computer modelling.
"What we're doing is using computer simulation modelling to estimate what the yield of a crop might have been in a normal season," Dr Christopher explained.
"But we also use it to estimate the effects of frosts.
"So we use climate data to predict when a frost has occurred and then how much damage would have happened to the crop and then we compare it to what the yield may have been had there not been a frost,"
Dr Christopher said growers are already sowing their crops too late for optimum yield, in an attempt to ensure that they will flower later in the season when the frost risk is lower.
"We find that the losses due to this delayed sowing, especially in the northern region of Queensland and New South Wales, are actually much greater again than the actual losses that we're experiencing due to the actual frost damage."
Meantime, the joint project is continuing its search for a gene which will offer greater frost resistance.
"Our work focuses on the genetics of the crop itself," said Dr Ben Trevaskis, group leader, CSIRO Agriculture.
"We're trying to get an inbuilt, intrinsic resistance to frost where the crop can tolerate the frost when it flowers and if you had a variety that could stand up to minus five [degrees celsius], it could still set and maintain grain," he said.
"That could make a really large difference to growers and the impact frost has on them."
Dr Trevaskis said the search for a frost resistant gene is painstaking and testing presents added difficulties.
"One of the real issues that we have at the moment is that the only way to test for frost tolerance and to really be sure that you've got it, is go to the field," he said.
"And that means you're dealing with weather; it's not predictable, the crop has to be at the right stage when the frost comes.
"So we'll do multiple sowing and use other tricks to try and line up things to flower when there's likely to be a frost event."
Source - http://www.abc.net.au
