RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS IN THE SPOTLIGHT AT ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS IN THE SPOTLIGHT

AT ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Further information, including ballot outcomes and video recordings from SRA’s AGM are also available on the website.

Sugar Research Australia’s Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer highlighted achievements of the 2021/22 financial year at SRA’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in late November.

Chairperson Rowena McNally said the first year of implementing the 2021-2026 Strategic Plan included the collaborative development of the industry roadmap – Sugar Plus, Fuelling the Future of Food, Energy and Fabrication.

“SRA’s work is built on partnerships, collaboration and engagement,” Rowena said.

“These were key in co-developing our strategy with growers and millers and have remained central to SRA’s operations over the past 12 months. This has particularly been demonstrated through our District Manager model, variety development and in shaping our Research

Investment Plan.”

Chief Executive Officer Roslyn Baker noted the importance of biosecurity and managing pest and disease risks for the industry.

“Biosecurity has gained much public attention this year, mostly due to the concerns in the livestock sector with foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease,” Roslyn said.

“Plant biosecurity is equally essential, and one of SRA’s most important investment roles is to mitigate biosecurity risk to the sugarcane industry.

“This year, together with Plant Health

Australia, SRA has completed a full review of the industry’s biosecurity risk profile to identify the consequences and the likelihood of a new incursion risk impacting our Australian industry.”

Roslyn also highlighted SRA work occurring in neighbouring Papua New Guinea to monitor and better understand exotic moth borers and the volume of samples and pest and disease tests handled over the past year.

“I have to give credit to our teams in our diagnostics and screening centres, who locally have processed almost 18,000 samples and delivered nearly 30,000 tests to detect the presence of pest and disease – RSD (ratoon stunting disease),

Pachymetra and nematodes, for example - and to assess cane quality for the industry. “SRA is also undertaking risk assessments on a newly discovered parasitic nematode, its capacity to cause disease, and the resistance of our germplasm to it.

“Additionally, we continue work on precommercial development of a LAMP assay test to detect RSD in cane entering the mill. While there is still some work to do on this project, excitingly work could lead to an ability for the industry to detect the

DNA of all endemic and potential exotic threats by testing cane entering the mill.

This would be a major breakthrough for biosecurity detection for the industry,”

Roslyn said.

Roslyn highlighted early-stage work into integrated pest management using insect-specific viruses to manage canegrubs.

“Not only is this research critical to industry’s productivity, but also important to build the Australian industry’s sustainability credentials without compromising productivity. This area of research will become even more critical for our industry into the future,”

Roslyn Baker

Roslyn also noted improvements in variety development.

“The number of clones in our program that were elite to Q208A in 2014 was 21.

In 2022, this number has risen to 208, providing us with a strong indication that the strength of the germplasm pipeline is significantly improving and even more hope that our commercial variety pipeline will improve and continue to improve over the coming years.

SRA’s 2021/22 Annual Report provides an in-depth look at progress over the past year. It can be viewed in the Publications area of the SRA website.