Research

Researchers Andrew Baird and Tom Bridge from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University and Queensland Museum Network recently visited to document the biodiversity of corals in the Lord Howe Island Marine Park, accompanied by field assistants Matt Curnock and Duan Briggs. Andrew and Tom are key members of Project Phoenix, an international collaboration seeking to re-invent hard coral taxonomy, using both old methods and new technologies.

Agriculture is the next frontier for space tech, with billion-dollar opportunities to super-charge technology adoption for farmers, fishers and foresters over the next five to ten years. That’s according to a new report by AgriFutures Australia, commissioned to give producers awareness of the depth and breadth of available space technologies, the potential uses and insights into what is coming over the next decade.

Researchers at The University of Western Australia have identified the cause of the devastating faba bean gall disease for the first time, a disease that causes significant destruction of bean crops in Ethiopia and China ... Faba bean is of critical importance for food security in Ethiopia, and faba bean gall disease is especially devastating for this East African community ... Australia is the world’s leading exporter of faba bean, producing up to 500 thousand tonnes annually and supplying one-third of faba bean traded internationally.

Granular Products, in collaboration with Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), have launched the new Regain 750WG herbicide for control of Prickly Acacia and other woody weeds - with the new formulation providing graziers with an option to manage infestations as they arise, while using existing spray equipment and their previous knowledge of spray chemicals.

With seeding ramping up across many parts of the southern region, growers are being reminded of the importance of monitoring and maintaining soil phosphorus levels in order to maximise yield and profit.

Regional housing markets, which increased in value more than capital cities during 2020, will have different recovery needs in the wake of the pandemic, according to research by AHURI (Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute). The report, Pathways to regional housing recovery from COVID-19, conducted by researchers from the University of Tasmania, examines the consequences of COVID-19 for households in regional Australia.

Narrandera may be a future home to a critically important research centre for one of the nation’s most iconic species, the koala. A notice of motion was submitted by deputy mayor David Fahey to Narrandera Shire Council to lobby Member for Cootamundra Steph Cooke, Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley and the NSW Parks and Wildlife Service to establish a Koala Research Centre in Narrandera. Cr Fahey said the centre would research and protect the koala population in the Shire, create a tourism opportunity and employment for the town, and protect the disease-free status of the local koala population.

Emergency management teams are often required to work under considerable pressure and heavy workloads, during times of stress and fatigue. Researchers have developed two new tools that help support and enhance individual and team capabilities during emergencies.

Despite the global economic shocks like those produced by the COVID-19 pandemic, agricultural sectors and economies overall are better off when exposed to international trade, the latest ABARES research paper shows. The research report, Understanding effects of supply disruptions on globally and locally focused economies, examines the effects of exposure to the global market on supply chains, and the risks and shocks of this exposure.

Researchers at UniSA have developed a cost-effective technique that could deliver safe drinking water to millions of vulnerable people using cheap, sustainable materials and sunlight ... A team led by Associate Professor Haolan Xu has refined a technique to derive freshwater from seawater, brackish water, or contaminated water, through highly efficient solar evaporation, delivering enough daily fresh drinking water for a family of four from just one square metre of source water.

Kirstin Nicholson. A turtle nest – a wonderful construction, dug by the female to lay her eggs in and filled back up to keep the eggs safe from the world until they hatch up to a year later ... Despite being backfilled, the eggs are still in danger from predators like foxes and water rats. While we may not be able to easily identify a turtle nest, unfortunately a fox can ... Graham Stockfeld from Turtles Australia has been visiting the Gunbower and Cohuna area several times a year to protect the nests and collect data.

A University of South Australia research team is developing a prototype it hopes will one day be able to measure a whole vineyard microclimate in 3-D and in real-time. Professor Anthony Finn and his team are pioneering a technology known as AAT (acoustic atmospheric tomography), which observes the temperature and wind flow in the atmosphere above a vineyard and combines it with observations of the vineyard obtained using miniaturised long wave infrared cameras. This creates an accurate temperature mosaic of the vineyard infrastructure (vines, posts, inter-row ground, etc).

A more sustainable global fish economy could be created by using food scraps to make high-quality food for farmed fish, according to a team of researchers at The University of Western Australia.

Almost all wild canines in Australia are genetically more than half dingo, a new study led by UNSW Sydney shows – suggesting that lethal measures to control “wild dog” populations are primarily targeting dingoes ... Rio Tinto Weipa and the Weipa Town Authority recently embarked on a “feral animal control” program that targeted “wild dogs”. Both bodies did not believe they were killing dingoes.

NSW Department of Primary Industries - Lord Howe Island Marine Park News Researchers Jonathon Mitchell and Victoria Camillieri-Asch from The University of Western Australia will...