GRDC dinner celebrate grant funding to improve wheat production.

Prof Bob Furbank, Program Leader, ARC Centre of Excellence in Translational Photosynthesis, with GRDC Managing Director John Harvey and GRDC Deputy Chairman Kim Halbert from Eneabba, WA.

Prof Bob Furbank, Program Leader, ARC Centre of Excellence in Translational Photosynthesis, with GRDC Managing Director John Harvey and GRDC Deputy Chairman Kim Halbert from Eneabba, WA.

On the 1st of December, the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) organised a dinner at the National Gallery Sculpture Garden in Canberra, to celebrate the success on the grant applications of the first round of the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP).

The event recognised Australia’s contribution to four of the eight projects selected.  Centre Chief Investigators Bob Furbank and John Evans, were invited to attend the celebration, as they are involved in two of the eight multinational projects selected for IWYP funding, which involved a rigorous international peer review process.

The IWYP leaders participating on the event, congratulated the awarded scientists and remarked on the importance of the IWYP  initiative as the  first global response to co-ordinate wheat research efforts to raise the genetic yield potential of wheat.

“IWYP is recognition that we could only ever hope to achieve the impact we need for step-change in wheat yield by coordinating worldwide research,” GRDC Chair Richard Clark during the event.

GRDC Chair Richard Clark thanking special guests at the International Wheat Yield Partnership dinner held in Canberra on 1 December. L-R: IWYP representative Dr Richard Flavell from the US, Australian researcher Dr Stuart Roy (University of Adelaide), IWYP representative Mr Steve Visscher (UK) and panel moderator Ms Glenda Korporaal from the Australian Newspaper.

GRDC Chair Richard Clark thanking special guests at the International Wheat Yield Partnership dinner held in Canberra on 1 December.
L-R: IWYP representative Dr Richard Flavell from the US, Australian researcher Dr Stuart Roy (University of Adelaide), IWYP representative Mr Steve Visscher (UK) and panel moderator Ms Glenda Korporaal from the Australian Newspaper.

“It is exciting that Australian researchers and the GRDC, as one of the 12 IWYP investment partners, have a major role in the IWYP initiative,” he said.

Globally, wheat is the most important staple crop, and with population growth and changing diets, demand is expected to increase by 60 per cent by 2050. To meet this demand, annual wheat yield increases must grow from the current level of below 1 per cent to at least 1.7 per cent.
The IWYP initiative aims to lift wheat yield potential by up to 50 per cent over 20 years.

 

Read the ANU’s media release here or read more details about the Centre’s projects here.

Watch the GRDC TV story on Australia’s role in helping to overcome a major world problem.