Dr Trevor Garnett
Senior Research Officer
Pastures Group
South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI)
Waite Research Precinct, GPO Box 397 , Adelaide
Email :garnett.trevor@saugov.sa.gov.au
Personal Website Address : http://www.sardi.sa.gov.au/pastures/index.html
The Big Question
- To identify and characterise natural variation in abiotic stress tolerance within pasture legume germplasm .
The Short-term goals
- To characterise within and between population variability in acid/aluminium tolerance, salt and waterlogging tolerance in a diverse range of lucerne (alfalfa) germplasm.
- To characterise the combined effects of salinity and waterlogging on lucerne germplasm
Our research is focussed on finding pasture legumes tolerant to abiotic stresses that are currently limiting the growth of pasture legumes with most of the current focus being with lucerne (alfalfa). Once we can identify tolerant material this can then be used by breeding programs, the main one being the SARDI Lucerne Breeding Program. We utilise the germplasm within the SARDI Genetic Resources Collection which currently maintains a 40 thousand pasture legumes sourced from around the world. We are using laboratory/glasshouse methods to select tolerant germplasm but also carry out field evaluation and selection in trials in South Australia and Western Australia .
A main focus of our current work is working with lucerne scientists in the north and west of China as part of an Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) funded project. This project has established trials across China containing germplasm with possible cold and drought tolerance. In Australia we are focussing on tolerance to acid/aluminium, salinity and waterlogging stresses. The Australian work is evaluating material for salinity, waterlogging and acid/aluminium tolerance in field trials and developing techniques to screen for tolerance to these stresses in the glasshouse. The main problem faced with lucerne is that, being an outcrossing plant, cultivars are populations of heterogenous individuals and screening methods must involve large numbers of individual plants to be able to characterise the variation in stress tolerance.
- Abiotic stress tolerance
- Nutrient distribution and remobilisation within plants
- Nutrient uptake
| Group (lab) Members and areas of research
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- Mr David Peck Screening lucerne germplasm for acid/aluminium and salinity tolerance
- Mr Jason Andrews Field evaluation of stress tolerance and germplasm multiplication
- Mrs Christiane Smethurst (UTAS) The effects of salinity and waterlogging on lucerne
Current
- 2001-2005 ACIAR Project Grant AS1/028/1998 ($938,900) with Australia (Sergey Shabala, UTAS; Roy Latta, Agriculture Western Australia) and China (Xu Zhu, Grasslands Research Institute Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science ; Liu Zhaohui, Shandong Academy of Agricultural Science; Cao Zhizhong, Gansu Agricultural University; Lu Xinshi, Beijing Forestry University; Nan Zhi Biao, Lanzhou UniversityI) "Lucerne adapted to adverse environments in China and Australia"
Applications submitted or planned
2004 DEST China-Australia Innovation Fund " China Australia Lucerne/Alfalfa Training Workshop"
| Techniques in the Laboratory
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Currently active
- Large scale hydroponics
- Chlorophyll fluorescence (PAM 2000)
- Root length measurement
Top three areas of knowledge
- Nutrient distribution and remobilisation within plants
- Abiotic stress tolerance
- Nutrient uptake by roots
Top three technical skills
- Plant tissue analysis
- Hydroponics
- Whole-plant/ecophysiology
| Publications - Last 5 years
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Garnett TP and Graham RD Distribution and Remobilisation of Iron and Copper in Wheat. (Submitted to Plant Cell and Environment)
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Christiane F. Smethurst, Trevor Garnett and Sergey Shabala Nutritional and photosynthetic responses of lucerne ( Medicago sativa ) to waterlogging and a subsequent recovery. (Submitted to Plant and Soil.)
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Garnett TP , Shabala SN, Smethurst PJ, and Newman I A (2003). Kinetics of ammonium and nitrate uptake by eucalypt roots and associated proton fluxes measured using ion selective microelectrodes. Functional Plant Biology, 30, 1165-1176
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Smethurst C, Garnett T , and Shabala, S Effects of waterlogging on chlorophyll fluorescence, photosynthesis and biomass of four lucerne cultivars. (Australian Society of Plant Scientists Conference, Sydney , September 2002).
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Auricht G, Humphries A, Kobelt E, and Garnett, T . Lucerne Improvement Activities in Southern Australia in 2002 (Australasian Plant Breeding Conference, Perth , September, 2002).
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Smethurst C, Garnett T , Auricht G, and Shabala, S. The effect of waterlogging on photosynthetic parameters in lucerne. (North American Alfalfa Improvement Conference, Sacramento , California , July 2002).
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Garnett T P , Shabala S N, Smethurst P J, and Newman I (2001) A Simultaneous measurement of ammonium, nitrate and proton fluxes along the length of eucalypt roots. Plant and Soil, 236: 55-62.
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Garnett T P , Graham, R D, Jenner, C F (2001) Short term transport of iron and copper to various parts of wheat grains. Pp 352-53 In: Plant Nutrition: Food security and sustainability of agro-ecosystems through basic and applied research. Eds: Horst et al. Kluwer, Dordrecht .
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Garnett T P and Smethurst P J (1999) Ammonium and nitrate uptake by Eucalyptus nitens : The effect pH and temperature. Plant and Soil, 214: 133-140.
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Garnett TP , Reid RJ, Jenner CF, and Graham RD (1999). The effect of metal chelates on the transport of iron and copper to the developing grain of cultured wheat ears (International Conference on Assimilate Transport and Partitioning, Newcastle, Australia, August 1999).
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