AHRI Snapshots

In this podcast, Jessica Strauss chats with then AHRI PhD Candidate Gayle Somerville about her paper “Modeling the impact of harvest weed seed control on herbicide resistance evolution”.The modelling in this paper was a component of the PhD research of AHRI PhD student Gayle Somerville, who is now a postdoc at Arhus University in Denmark. Harvest weed seed control (HWSC) is a term that describes a...

In this podcast, we chat with InterGrain Research Officer Hannah Robinson. Not too long ago she completed her PhD at the University of Queensland (which was funded by GRDC), looking primarily at identifying the genes controlling root architecture in barley. Some significant discoveries were made during this time, including identifying a key gene in barley that enables the plant to access water sto...

Tony Swan is back to discuss his latest research findings! We've previously highlighted in AHRI insight and the podcast, research by Tony Swan and the team from CSIRO that demonstrated double breaks (ie. growing two break crops in sequence) were more effective in reducing annual ryegrass numbers to manageable levels than a single break crop or continuous wheat. The research team took this one...

This podcast looks at trifluralin resistance, with AHRI Director Stephen Powles. The results out of a recent AHRI, entitled Novel Tubulin Mutations Conferring Resistance to Dinitroaniline Herbicides in Lolium rigidum are the primary focus. Steve explains that this study clearly and comprehensively establishes that target site resistance to dinitroaniline herbicides, such as trifluralin, can be end...

In this podcast, we chat with Professor Martin Vila-Aiub, who is currently on sabbatical at AHRI from the University of Buenos Aires. Martin is a good friend of AHRI, visiting a number of times on sabbatical and also completing his PhD here between 2001-2005.  As you'll learn in more detail in this podcast, in his sabbatical period this time at AHRI, he will write a review on the impact of re...

Every five years, Mechelle Owen, one of our dedicated AHRI researchers, undertakes the massive task of visiting 500 fields in Western Australia just before harvest to sample seeds of surviving weeds for resistance testing with GRDC support. So far, we have reported on the results from the latest survey in AHRI insight, looking at ryegrass resistance. You can check it out here: https://ahri.uwa.edu...

AHRI was recently lucky enough to be visited by Professor Baruch Rubin from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Baruch completed a sabbatical in AHRI 15 years ago, so we were delighted to welcome him back for his short visit. In this podcast, Baruch commentates on night spraying and sheds light on some of his research in this area. He also gives insights into how farming systems in Israel compare...

In this podcast, Jessica Strauss chats with Dr Richard Smith, who is an Associate Professor of Cropping Systems Ecology and Management at the University of New Hampshire and currently on sabbatical leave at AHRI.Dr Smith’s research addresses the roles that ecologically-informed management and crop plant diversity play in promoting species interactions that benefit agriculture and weed management....

This podcast with AHRI Principal Research Fellow Dr Qin Yu focuses on explaining some of the more tricky aspects of the paper:A double EPSPS gene mutation endowing glyphosate resistance shows a remarkably high resistance costThis paper was a collaboration between AHRI researchers Heping Han, Qin Yu, and Steve Powles, as well as past AHRI researchers Adam Jalaludin and Martin Vila-Aiub. AHRI resear...

With the exciting news of Hugh Beckie being announced as the new AHRI Director (commencing in July 2018), we thought it might be fitting to release this interview we did when he was here in Perth. Hugh discusses the issue of wild oats in Western Canada and the tactics being used to control this weed. We then hear from AHRI extension officer Paul McIntosh, who gives us a local perspective, discussi...

Weed population simulations can be useful to predict the effects of alternative management practices on herbicide resistance evolution. Almost all previous simulations have ignored the possibility of within-field spatial structure in a weed population, instead, making the implicit assumption of perfect dispersal and spatial homogeneity in population density and genetics. The effects of this simpli...

Dr Catherine Borger (pictured above) from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development talks about one of the GRDC projects she's working on in this podcast with the host, Jessica Strauss. The project, run by Dr Gurjeet Gill from the University of Adelaide is looking closely at a range of weed species to find out more about the basic ecological facts about them. Dr Borger sai...

Recently Jessica Strauss caught up with Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development Principal Research Officer Dr Abul Hashem to talk about research he and Dr Catherine Borger have done on the interaction between soil pH, weeds and crops. Soil acidity limits productivity on approximately 50% of Australia’s agricultural land and several important weed species have a competitive advant...

Research by Cathryn O’Sullivan from CSIRO is showing that some weeds release chemicals from their roots that slow down the bacteria that are essential to the nitrogen cycle, retaining nitrogen in the ammonium form that weeds can potentially take up faster than crop plants. In this research, Cathryn focused on some common Australian weeds, including wild radish, brome grass, wild oats and annual ry...

Sowthistle is the kind of weed which can be a pain all-year-round. It's particularly problematic for farmers in the North-Eastern part of the country. Jessica Strauss talks to Principal Research Scientist from the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Michael Widderick, about the strengths and weaknesses of this weed and how to manage it effectively, based on Michael and other&a...

Dr Todd Gaines recently visited AHRI and took time out to explain the significance of AHRI Director Stephen Powles' award. Steve recently won the American Chemical Society International Award for Research in agrochemicals. He's the first Australian to win the award, which is given to a scientist who has made outstanding contributions to the field of agrochemicals at the international lev...

CSIRO wheat breeder Dr Greg Rebetzke talks to Jessica Strauss about the research being conducted into developing a new high vigour wheat. What if we could have a wheat variety that could play the yield game and the competition game? What would that look like? Perhaps a dwarf wheat, with a long coleoptile, prostrate growth habit (like barley), early vigour, leaves like solar panels, and of course,...

You may have used the handy Ryegrass RIM AHRI developed. Now, thanks to the efforts of CSIRO and GRDC, as well as AHRI, new RIM models for both brome and barley grass will become available to use by farmers, agronomists and researchers. CSIRO Farming Systems Scientist Rick Llewellyn explains why the new models have come about, how they can be used and the benefits of using them in this podcast wit...

We're really fortunate to have excellent Chinese visiting scholars and Ph. D. students at AHRI. In this podcast, Steve Powles chats with Jessica Strauss about how the win-win program started. Dr. Yu Qin, is the senior researcher at AHRI and manages all the Chinese scholars and Ph. D. students. She regularly visits China and recruits students to continue their studies at AHRI. Steve explains h...

Much like we promote rotating herbicides to keep them working, Mike Ashworth explains in this podcast how mixing up how non-herbicidal weed tactics are applied, helps maintain their effectiveness too. AHRI is currently looking further into this with research work being conducted at our Shenton Park research facility. Mike chats to podcast host Jessica Strauss about this research, and also provides...

Some excellent research conducted by Stephen Hole, under the watchful eye of Professor Steve Powles at the University of Adelaide in the mid-1990’s investigated the microbial degradation of propyzamide and another similar herbicide, carbetamide. Enhanced microbial degradation is where the soil bacteria that can eat a particular herbicide build up to very high levels so when the herbicide is applie...

Not so long ago, harvest weed seed control (HWSC) was only used by a minority of early adopting grain growers. Now it has gone mainstream and pretty soon just about everyone will be doing it. This is the result from a national Australian GRDC grower survey reported in a recent scientific publication by Michael Walsh from University of Sydney. Every few years GRDC fund a large grower practices tele...

Unfortunately, large parts of Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland are as dry as a London newspaper! In this podcast, Jessica Strauss chats to Dr David Minkey about spraying stressed weeds in dry conditions. The info comes from GRDC funded research conducted by Dave Minkey and John Moore at DAFWA in the 90s. They set out to determine what factors influence herbicide rate. They looked...

Short black, long black, double shot, double break? Coffee preference is a little like crop sequences. Perhaps you’re a ‘short black’ wheat-canola type, strong on inputs? Or a ‘long black’ type who likes to dilute their rotations a bit more? Or are you a ‘double shot’, throwing in a few break crops in a row for maximum effect? When it comes to managing annual ryegrass populations, Tony Swan and th...

AHRI Director Stephen Powles discusses the latest paper out of the research group "Harvest Weed Seed Control Systems are Similarly Effective on Rigid Ryegrass" and talks about the positive results. You can read it in full here: http://ahri.uwa.edu.au/publications/harvest-weed-seed-control-systems-are-similarly-effective-on-rigid-ryegrass/Jessica Strauss also catches up with Peter Newman...