Oat crown rust impacts hay, grazing and milling oat varieties. Photo: Bayer

THE UNIVERSITY of Sydney will lead an industry study that aims to reduce the impact of damaging crown rust, a fungal pathogen affecting Australian oat production.

Crop disease expert Professor Robert Park will head the research team, working with two Australian oat-breeding companies, Intergrain, with a focus on hay and milling oats, and S&W Seed Australia, which has a focus on grazing oats for livestock.

The Australian oat industry has been plagued by recurring epidemics of the destructive disease crown rust ever since oat cultivation began here.

It occurs globally and is considered the most important disease limiting oat production worldwide.

“Crown rust causes severe damage to oat crops in Australia and, due to ongoing losses of important resistance genes since the early 1990s,” Professor Park said.

“It has become an intractable constraint to oat production.

Professor Robert Park

“Loss in grain yield can be as high as 50pc in susceptible varieties.”

Australia produces three oat types: grazing for the meat and livestock industries; hay for animal consumption; and milling for human or animal consumption.

Many grazing oat varieties with genetic resistance to crown rust were released in Australia from 1990-2020.

Although resistant when first deployed, new rust strains emerged soon after, rendering all these varieties highly susceptible to the fungal disease.

“Our project aims to reduce the impact of crown rust in Australian oat production.

“It will deliver robust genetic resistance to crown rust to all Australian oat growers.”

The University of Sydney team will work with researchers at Murdoch University and the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics & Crop Plant Research in Germany.

“The work with these colleagues will provide vital genetic expertise.

“The Leibniz Institute and Murdoch University are part of a global effort that is sequencing and characterising the oat genome.

“This work will accelerate our efforts to deliver oats with improved rust resistance to oat growers.

“We expect the project will also lead to responsible stewardship of broadly effective crown rust resistance in all types of oat production in Australia, increasing grower profitability, reducing reliance on fungicides and underpinning planned growth in our export oat market.”

The team was awarded an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant to the value of $928,845.

Source: University of Sydney