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Antarctic genes to be used in frost tolerant GM wheat

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Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
October 15, 2007

Australian farmers form company to fund research by Molecular Plant Breeding CRC

The Molecular Plant Breeding Cooperative Research Centre (MPBCRC) today announced its intention to develop genetically modified (GM) wheat with enhanced tolerance to frost.

The project is backed by a group of Australian farmers who have formed a company, Green Blueprint International Ltd (GBI), and lodged a prospectus to raise $2 million to fund the research.

The partners aim to develop frost tolerant wheat varieties using a gene from Antarctic Hairgrass, one of the few plants to successfully colonise the icy continent.

The frost tolerant gene creates a protein that inhibits ice crystal growth in the plant.

Although genes for these Ice Recrystallisation Inhibition Proteins (IRIPs) are not unique to Antarctic Hairgrass and are also found in wheat and barley, researchers are hopeful that the novel characteristics of the Antarctic genes will lead to better ice crystal inhibition.

WA farmer John Stone said that GBI was formed in response to grower concerns over frost damage.

“Frost damage to Australia’s national wheat crop costs farmers around $100 million a year,” he said.

“We wanted to invest directly in new technologies that have the potential to make a significant difference to productivity in frost-prone areas of the Wheatbelt.”

Growers in high frost risk areas are frequently required to use ‘frost avoidance’ strategies, such as delayed planting to avoid flowering and early grain-fill taking place during the peak frost period.

Researchers have already shown that by inserting the IRIP gene into model Arabidopsis plants ice crystal inhibition is possible.

GBI’s initial investment will finance research to show proof-of-concept that the technology has the potential to work effectively in wheat.

A similar level of investment will be required to take the technology to the next level, namely to develop and field test the most promising GM wheat plants.

Once the first marketable products carrying the IRIP technology are developed and tested, seed producer-distributors will be engaged to take the product to market.

GBI Chairman, Dr Ian Edwards, said “MPBCRC has certainly shown that it is the partner of choice when we searched for a group to undertake this research. They have recently planted Australia’s first drought tolerant GM wheat trial and are well placed to do the frost tolerant wheat project”.

MPBCRC CEO Dr Glenn Tong said that he was very pleased that his organisation had been chosen to undertake this important research.

“We are delighted to be working so closely with grain growers on this project. They came to us with a serious problem and we are going to try to solve it for them using state of the art biotechnology.”

“This has the potential to afford significant benefits to growers not just in Australia but also around the world.”

“Frost is a highly intractable problem, with over 30 years of traditional breeding not making much of a dent. We hope that using gene technologies, we can make some significant headway in this project,” Dr Tong said.

MPBCRC was formed in July 2003 under the Cooperative Research Centres Program funded by the Commonwealth Government.

It aims to develop new technologies in molecular genetics and molecular plant breeding and implement effective strategies for their use in cereal and pasture improvement programs.

The technologies developed by MPBCRC are being commercialised and delivered through the involvement of breeding organisations and seed companies in Australia and around the world.

MPBCRC’s head office is at the newly established Victorian AgriBiosciences Centre in Bundoora, Melbourne, and its 200 research staff are located at various participating organisations in Melbourne, Adelaide, Horsham, Hamilton, Perth, Lismore, Mexico and Syria.

More information:

The issuer of the prospectus and securities is Green Blueprint International Ltd. The prospectus is available and can be obtained at the following website: www.no-till.com.au 

This media release does not constitute an offer of securities which will only be made in accordance with the prospectus. Anyone wishing to acquire securities in Green Blueprint International Ltd will need to consider the prospectus and then complete the application form contained in the prospectus. For further information please refer to the Media contacts below.

 

 

 

 

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