Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia
Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia (DAFWA): Research LibraryNot a member yet
10920 research outputs found
Sort by
Been Doin\u27 This 20 Years - Insights of a long-term Food Recycler
No full textWho we are; how our farming roots with Nindi Feedlots led to current food recycling operations at Nork Solutions, and our very near future of exporting our innovations via NúaTech. Our plans to accelerate our rate of innovation and iterative development via a virtous cycle of R&D in NúaTech, and improvement insights via real-world deployment in Nork Solutions.
A quick look at economic and ethical case for a non-zero level of overproduction of food staples. The benefit for regulation to differentiate between overproduction wasted to landfill, and overproduction reintegrated back into any level of the food supply chain.
The function innovative businesses like Nork can serve in recycling this necessary overproduction, minimising valuable nutrients lost to landfill and waste, while maximising value created in the broader economy by avoiding catch-all degradation processes such as compost when unnecessary
Sustainable Packaging - A Global Perspective
No full textNerida will provide a global view on what sustainable packaging really looks like for WPO Members. There are many pieces to the jigsaw puzzle when discussing Sustainable Packaging and there is no silver bullet as every product needs a fit-for-purpose, functional solution
Weed Seed Wizard scenario - dormancy shift in barley grass in Balaklava, South Australia
No full textThe Weed Seed Wizard is a national collaborative project that uses paddock management information to predict weed emergence and crop losses now and in the future.
The Weed Seed Wizard is a computer simulation tool that: applies to all Australian grain growing areas helps growers understand and manage weed seedbanks on their farms uses farm management records to simulate how different crop rotations, weed control techniques, irrigation, grazing and harvest management tactics can affect weed numbers, the weed seedbank and yields uses farm-specific management and site-specific weather is multi-species
See www.dpird.wa.gov.au for further information on Weed Seed Wizard.
This South Australian scenario is set in Balaklava between 2010-13 and is a barley - lentils - wheat - barley rotation with annual ryegrass and barley grass
Estimation of effective number of breeders and effective population size in an abundant and heavily exploited marine teleost
No full textObtaining reliable estimates of the effective number of breeders (Nb) and generational effective population size (Ne) for fishery-important species is challenging because they are often iteroparous and highly abundant, which can lead to bias and imprecision. However, recent advances in understanding of these parameters, as well as the development of bias correction methods, have improved the capacity to generate reliable estimates. We utilized samples of both single-cohort young of the year and mixed-age adults from two geographically and genetically isolated stocks of the Australasian snapper (Chrysophrys auratus) to investigate the feasibility of generating reliable Nb and Ne estimates for a fishery species. Snapper is an abundant, iteroparous broadcast spawning teleost that is heavily exploited by recreational and commercial fisheries. Employing neutral genome-wide SNPs and the linkage-disequilibrium method, we determined that the most reliable Nb and Ne estimates could be derived by genotyping at least 200 individuals from a single cohort. Although our estimates made from the mixed-age adult samples were generally lower and less precise than those based on a single cohort, they still proved useful for understanding relative differences in genetic effective size between stocks. The correction formulas applied to adjust for biases due to physical linkage of loci and age structure resulted in substantial upward modifications of our estimates, demonstrating the importance of applying these bias corrections. Our findings provide important guidelines for estimating Nb and Ne for iteroparous species with large populations. This work also highlights the utility of samples originally collected for stock structure and stock assessment work for investigating genetic effective size in fishery-important species
Fer wine grapes in Western Australia
No full textFer is a French variety known to produce concentrated wines of good colour with a medium to full body. Wine aroma and flavour are typified by dark fruits and spice with soft tannins.
Fer grapevines were evaluated for fruit and wine production in Manjimup from 2007 to 2010.
Fer was found to be late ripening when grown here although it showed good disease resistance
Modelling aphid movement in Australian canola fields
No full textA growing challenge in canola (Brassica napus L.) production globally is the management of aphid pests, particularly species that are resistant to insecticides. Aphid pests of canola damage plants through direct feeding and virus transmission, with turnip yellows virus being particularly economically damaging. Integrated Pest Management, a strategy now employed by many growers to reduce the risk of insecticide resistance, requires forward planning and monitoring. Improved risk predictions can be used to help growers limit insecticide spraying by targeting high-risk regions and/or periods. Within Australia, autumnal aphid flights coincide with the critical risk period for virus infestations in canola. In this study, we used an extensive database accumulated from 6 years of surveys collected from more than 200 canola fields across southern Australia with supervised machine learning models to predict aphid movements in autumn-early winter as a function of environmental factors. We found: (i) our models achieve very high predictive accuracy when validated on untrained data; (ii) aphid movements are influenced by a combination of daily temperature and wind regimes as well as ‘green bridge’ effects mediated by summer rainfall patterns; and (iii) higher aphid capture rates in sticky traps are correlated with a higher probability of the aphids being carriers of turnip yellows virus. Taken together these results suggest that growers can use the outputs from predictive models to forecast aphid outbreaks in the early growing season and derive useful rules of thumb around the environmental conditions during which canola crops are at a greater risk of turnip yellows virus transmission
Stockfeed labelling in Western Australia
No full textThe Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) is responsible for regulating the labels of stockfeed supplied in Western Australia (WA) to ensure they provide the required information to people feeding it to their livestock. This factsheet contains information to help stockfeed retailers and manufacturers meet WA’s labelling requirements
Postharvest blown-arc plasma treatment did not reduce Fusarium graminearum or its mycotoxins in field-infested wheat grain
No full textThe increasing prevalence of Fusarium graminearum, a major causative pathogen of Fusarium head blight in cereal crops, leads to contamination of grain with mycotoxins, which necessitates the development of effective management strategies. This study investigated whether postharvest Blown-Arc plasma treatment could reduce F. graminearum and associated mycotoxins in field-infested grain. Postharvest Blown-Arc plasma treatment for 60 or 180 s was trialled to reduce Fusarium graminearum and deoxynivalenol (DON) mycotoxins in field-infested wheat grain. Changes in fungal components of the grain microbiome following the treatment were assessed using metabarcoding analysis of the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer gene region, and liquid chromatography mass spectrophotometry was used to measure changes in concentrations of the mycotoxins deoxynivalenol (DON), DON-3-glucoside (DON3-G) and 3-acetyl-DON (3-ADON). Fusarium spp. were the most common taxa in the grain over two seasons, with the relative abundance being higher in 2020 (72%) compared to 2021 (45%). Postharvest plasma treatment of field-infested grain for 60 or 180 s did not significantly lower Fusarium abundance. Alpha and beta diversity of the natural mycobiota in the grain were also unaffected. The concentrations of mycotoxins were not significantly different after the treatments, except that in the 2021 trial, the 180 s treatment caused a significant increase in DON concentration. We concluded that the postharvest plasma treatment used in this study did not reduce Fusarium contamination or the concentration of mycotoxins, DON, DON3-G and 3-ADON in field-infested grain. The results highlight the importance of using field-infested grain in experiments, as opposed to grain inoculated under laboratory conditions, which provides only superficial infection. This approach is crucial for accurately understanding the dynamics of treatment efficacy
Live cattle assessment
No full textCattle producers regularly make visual assessments of their cattle. Frame, structure, muscularity, fatness and condition score can all be assessed by visual appraisal. Some traits cannot be assessed visually (for example fertility or marbling). To evaluate the genetic merit of an animal, estimated breeding values (EBVs) can be used
Carnarvon, Shire of - South BEN sign map – 2 of 2
No full textBeach Emergency Number (BEN) - Shire of Carnarvon (south)https://library.dpird.wa.gov.au/gis_bens/1055/thumbnail.jp