The GRDC
The Grains Research and Development Corporation is a statutory authority established to plan and invest in R&D for the Australian grains industry.The Grains Research and Development Corporation is a statutory authority established to plan and invest in R&D for the Australian grains industry.The Grains Research and Development Corporation is a statutory authority established to plan and invest in R&D for the Australian grains industry.
Its primary objective is to support effective competition by Australian grain growers in global grain markets, through enhanced profitability and sustainability.
Its primary business activity is the allocation and management of investment in grains R&D.
GRDC Vision
Driving innovation for a profitable and environmentally sustainable Australian grains industry.
CASE STUDY: Evaluating the impacts of climate change on wheat production
Through the establishment of the GRDC-supported Australian Grains Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (AGFACE) facilities at Horsham and Walpeup in Victoria, there is now significant investment in a state-of-the-art facility to evaluate the impacts of climate change on plants, crops and, potentially, farming systems. The investment from 2006 until June 2010 is approximately $5 million.
The focus of the work in the AGFACE facility is to undertake research to investigate the interaction of water supply, temperature and elevated carbon dioxide levels with Australian wheat varieties under ‘field’ conditions. In addition...
CASE STUDY: Streamlining End Point Royalty collection and compliance
Historically, plant breeding in Australia was mainly conducted by state government departments and universities and was largely government funded. Improved varieties were freely released to producers. Over the past two decades, plant-breeding programs have had to increasingly rely on funding from industry, through organisations such as the GRDC, and on End Point Royalties (EPRs) paid for successful varieties.
EPRs are payments made to the owner/s of a plant variety for the right to grow that variety. As the phrase ‘end point’ suggests, EPRs are paid on production rather than seed sales: the royalty is paid when a grower sells the grain produced from a protected variety.
Today, the market for wheat varieties in Australia is large enough to support commercially viable wheat-breeding programs. However, the viability of commercial breeding depends on an effective EPR collection system, based on a whole-of-industry ‘culture of compliance’.
CASE STUDY: Ensuring growers remain safe on farm
As a partner in the Joint Research Venture for Farm Health and Safety, the GRDC continued to work with other rural R&D corporations (RDCs) to research and develop packages that raise awareness of farm health and safety issues and better practices in 2007–08.
The joint research venture was a collaborative partnership between Australian Wool Innovation Ltd, the Cotton RDC, Meat and Livestock Australia, the Rural Industries RDC, the Sugar RDC and the GRDC.
CASE STUDY: Improving lupins through successful breeding
JenabillupA, released in September 2007, is a high-yielding narrow-leafed lupin variety for the south-east coastal zones of Western Australia. JenabillupA is the latest in a long line of lupin varieties from the breeding program that released MandelupA in 2004.
To measure genetic gain, the lupin-breeding program has measured the performance of the historical varieties in the same trial across years and across all breeding sites since 1997. The trial is also useful for understanding the types of stresses experienced at the site in a particular year and providing information about how different varieties react to those stresses...
CASE STUDY: Identifying genes to combat boron toxicity
Boron toxicity is a major limitation to cereal production in southern Australia, where more than 30 percent of soils in grain-growing regions have boron levels above the generally accepted threshold of 15 milligrams per kilogram in the top 100 centimetres of soil. Yield penalties of up to 17 percent between adjacent areas of barley have been attributed to differences in shoot boron concentration, and similar figures (11 percent) have been reported for wheat.
Boron toxicity is also widespread globally. Soils high in boron tend to be associated with low-rainfall environments (250 millimetres to 450 millimetres per year) and derived from clay-rich sediments of marine origin. Increasingly, boron toxicity is becoming associated with irrigated environments, where groundwater application contributes to an excessive accumulation of boron in the soil.
CASE STUDY: Improving the effectiveness of fertiliser application
In 2007, through the Northern Agribusiness Trial Extension Network, the GRDC worked with a central Queensland grain grower, Andrew Bate, to explore new options for varying the traditional fixed costs of winter crop fertilising programs.
Growing crops on stored summer moisture, with little winter rainfall, leaves minimal opportunities to top-dress or foliar-spray nitrogen, but the Bate family wanted to move away from pre-spreading nitrogen....
CASE STUDY: Combating glyphosate resistance
The GRDC supports work to provide effective weed management options that do not contribute to the growth of resistance to glyphosate, still one of the most effective herbicides available to the grains industry. This includes research into optimising glyphosate application, as well as identifying non-chemical alternatives to herbicide use.
A somewhat controversial and unresolved issue in Australia is Australian growers’ use of low herbicide rates by world standards, combined with the tendency...
CASE STUDY: Promoting healthy eating through Go Grains
A key role of Go Grains (Go Grains Health and Nutrition Ltd) is to increase the value of the Australian grains industry by influencing the decisions consumers make about the foods that they buy. Go Grains communicates the latest information about grains and nutrition to target audiences such as health professionals; teachers; representatives of industry, government and the media; grain growers; and members of the general public.
Consumption of grain-based foods is encouraged by Australian dietary guidelines, but constantly challenged in the marketplace by the influence of heavily marketed diets...
CASE STUDY: Developing soft products to achieve hard results
More than five years ago, Dr Carrie Hauxwell and her team at the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries were given the challenge to develop a number of costeffective, new-generation, ‘soft’ insecticides, targeting sucking insects in sorghum and pulses. This year saw the first of their products move into a commercialisation phase.
Access to older generation, broad-spectrum insecticides is decreasing, and concerns about the broader effects of such ‘hard’ chemicals in integrated pest management...
CASE STUDY: Putting precision agriculture into practice
The GRDC, in partnership with the Southern Precision Agriculture Association, published PA in Practice, an 80-page booklet showcasing grain grower experiences of using variable rate technology and other precision agriculture (PA) technologies.
These grower case studies were sourced from New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia, and demonstrated the benefits of investing in PA technology.
CASE STUDY: Nurturing leadership through Nuffield scholarships
In 2007–08, the GRDC again funded three Australian Nuffield Farming Scholarships. The GRDC’s support of the scholarship program ensures the continued development of skill and leadership in people working in the grains industry.
Through its farming scholars program, Nuffield Australia encourages Australian primary producers to adopt local and international best practice.
CASE STUDY: Adding value to feed grain through near-infrared testing
The Premium Grains for Livestock Program (PGLP) was established as a jointly funded grains industry and animal industries project. The project arose because of the rapidly increasing demand for feed grain from the intensive livestock and dairy industries, and their need for a reliable supply of grain that met their quality specifications.
The grains and animal industries recognised the opportunity to identify the characteristics of grains that made the grains most suitable for different forms of animal production...