GRDC will put rice genome to work

Australia's Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) is in line to become one of the first commercial organisations licensed to use Syngenta's rice genome sequence.

Dr Ross Gilmore, the program manager for GRDC's Winter Cereals Improvement program, said that the organisation is in negotiations with Syngenta for use of the sequence to develop new commercial crop strains.

While academic researchers have free access to Syngenta's sequence, commercial users are required to negotiate an agreement with the company to use the sequence.

"We have a significant investment in genomics research of $2 million per year," said Dr Ross Gilmore, who is the program manager for GRDC's Winter Cereals Improvement program.

"This will be enhanced by access to the rice genome sequence."

Gilmore explained that wheat and barley are similar genetically to rice. Gene discovery can be performed in rice and barley and tested against the rice genome.

"There are no prospects in the short term for wheat and barley genomes as they are too large," he said.

Gilmore said that nearly all of GRDC's research was in winter cereals.

Access to the Syngenta sequence will allow GRDC funded researchers to choose the best sequence data available from the public and private databases, according to Gilmore.

With a $5.5 billion per annum wheat market, of which 80 per cent is exported, it is important for Australia to remain competitive in the international market, he said.

GRDC funds research through many collaborations across Australia, including some with CSIRO, state departments of agriculture and universities such as Adelaide University and the University of Western Australia.