25 November 2004: A strict quarantine barrier in Australia means that sunflower production, including plant breeding has been conducted in isolation from exotic diseases already present in other regions around the globe.

According the Pacific Seeds' Research Director and sunflower breeder Alan Scott, one of the effects of this protective isolation is that many Australian varieties have not been able to be bred to incorporate resistance to some of these exotic pests and diseases.

"The protection barrier was established to stop seed born diseases and pests such as downy mildew and parasitic pests such as orobanche (broomrape) being introduced into the country on seed," Mr Scott said.
"As a consequence of this quarantine system, all sunflower breeding in this country has also been conducted behind this barrier."

"These diseases are usually very real limitations to grain production in many other regions of the world."

"The downstream effect of this is that if any of these diseases ever entered Australia we probably would not have resistance against these pests within the plant breeding process in our commercial varieties."
"This is a huge threat to the sunflower industry and strategies needed development to address this danger."

However, advances in gene marker technology is allowing this barrier to be overcome, which if these pests and diseases ever manage to gain a foothold in Australia, could save the industry millions of dollars.

"Good examples of the impact of this type of situation are ergot in sorghum and stripe rust outbreaks in wheat," Mr Scott said.
"However, biotechnology has now been developed to a point where molecular markers (genetic indicators) can be used both for defensive and development breeding strategies."

Pacific Seeds has been the major supplier of hybrid and open pollinated sunflower varieties in Australia for nearly 40 years, and is a part of the Advanta Seeds international group of companies, giving its sunflower breeding program access to technology not previously available, which can help address the scenario above.

"Many of the Pacific Seeds sunflower breeding projects are now being carried out in its Toowoomba based program, which is directly linked to the Advanta molecular marker labs in Europe and Argentina," Mr Scott said.
"In this situation the Pacific Seeds sunflower breeder now takes tissue of the segregating plants he would like to select for the Australian environment."

"We then send this tissue to the molecular marker lab to verify the absence or presence of the resistance genes for each specific threat within the plant selected in the Toowoomba breeding nursery. This then allows the breeder to be sure of the genes included in the selected plant."
Mr Scott said that in previous years, the lines would have to be sent to another countr, where they would be grown to maturity under heavy disease conditions in order to be assessed for resistance.

This meant the resistant plants resulting from this process were not able to be reintroduced into the segregating line due to quarantine regulations.

"In the near future, Pacific Seeds will have molecular marker technology for this application in its own Toowoomba laboratory."

Access to these international connections means that molecular markers developed for other markets for diseases not in this country can now be applied to the Pacific Seeds' Australian breeding program, he said.

"This provides our industry with the ability to do two things, firstly we can now develop hybrids for Australia already incorporating these resistance genes and secondly we can be in a position that should a new disease or parasite enter the country, development time for incorporating resistance to the new disease would be extremely rapid."

Both the points Mr Scott made are classic examples of new technology being used pragmatically and also the benefits and efficiencies of being part of a global research community.

So a combination of forward planning and new technology is allowing safeguards to be put in place should our country's strict quarantine barrier be breached.