This programme develops integrated management strategies that minimise the effects of pests and diseases on crop production in a sustainable manner.
Biosecurity
Research in this Key Area focuses on:
- Development of proactive threat specific counter-measures and biosecurity incursions plans;
- Generation of knowledge of the biology, pathogenicity and epidemiology of pathogens posing potential incursion threats to the industry, as well as the agroecology, behaviour and reproductive biology of new potential pests; and
- Development of improved procedures and diagnostic technologies to ensure that varieties released or propagated into the industry, or imported via the industry Quarantine Facility, are free of pathogens and pests. The information and knowledge gained in this Key Research Area are applied towards the development of Integrated Management tactics for potential new pathogen and pest incursions into the industry.
Biology and Ecology
Research in this Key Area focuses on:
- Investigation of the biology and ecology of the primary pathogens and pests of the industry with a view to the development of integrated management tactics and knowledge exchange with the grower community; and
- Assessment of the impact on crop yield of the primary and emerging pathogens and pests in the industry to facilitate grower decision-making regarding the implementation of management tactics. The information and knowledge gained in this Key Performance Area are applied to the development of integrated management tactics for the major pathogens and pests in the industry.
Resistance
Research in this Key Area seeks to develop knowledge regarding the biological basis of sugarcane resistance to pathogens and pests in order to develop approaches, resources and technologies to enhance resistance breeding in Commercial Breeding.
Cultural and Environmental Practices
Research in this Key Area seeks to develop cost-effective technologies that permit the establishment of sugarcane agro-ecological environments in which pathogens and pests are suppressed to low levels by benign biological or ecological means.
Several complementary habitat management technologies are considered, including:
- Push-pull technology
- Biodiversity management, including wetland, riparian zone and vegetation corridor restoration;
- Crop husbandry, including crop rotation, use of fallow crops, nutrient management and crop residue management;
- The Sterile Insect Technique; and
- Parasitoid and entomo-pathogen release.
Agrochemicals
Investigations in this Key Research Area focus on the development of a suite of effective pathogen and pest control agents that are agriculturally, environmentally, ecologically and economically sustainable.
Research focuses on a series of technologies, including:
- Development of pheromones and traps to enable monitoring and rational agrochemical application programmes, primarily for eldana;
- Search for more benign alternative chemistries; and
- Development of superior application tactics and product formulations.
Current Projects
Sterile Insect Technique for eldana management: Resource development and pilot release programme
Variety Evaluation – Nematicide/Insecticide/Plant Physiological effect (BANDITO)
Variety Evaluation – Diseases
Additional chemistries and strategies for sugarcane pest and disease control
Prediction of quantitative resistance to sugarcane pests and diseases by means near infra-red spectroscopy
Fungicidal, nematicidal and biological control of Fusarium associated with eldana
Chemical ecology of Cacosceles newmanii and Eldana saccharina
Development of a user-friendly, in-field test for RSD
The development of an eldana risk index on the SASRI WeatherWeb
Species diversity of natural enemies of yellow sugarcane aphid
Yellow sugarcane aphid and thrips varietal susceptibility
Roguing for smut: economics and alternate methodologies
Economics of establishing certified nurseries with different plant sources
The eldana microbiome
The development of a YSA risk index
