Ahri Snapshots

AHRI's Agronomy Lead, Mike Ashworth, provides an update on the trial work the agronomy team has been doing. We find out a bit more details about some of the preliminary results from trials conducted in 2018 and we also get a snapshot of what they're looking at this year. Take a listen!You can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.

Researchers Gulshan Mahajan, Amar Matloob, Barbara George-Jaeggli, Michael Walsh and Bhagirath 'Sunny' Chauhan have studied this same phenomenon in an emerging weed in the northern grains region – African turnipweed. In this podcast we chat with Sunny Chauhan to learn more. Working with two biotypes of African turnipweed – one from the higher rainfall environment of Dalby, Queensland and one from the medium rainfall environment of St George, Queensland – the researchers wanted to know if there were differences in the way that these two populations respond to environmental stress. They also wanted to gather intelligence about the germination biology of this weed, which is emerging as a potential threat to cropping in the northern region. Take a listen for more information!You can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.

AHRI's Dr Danica Goggin has found in her recent research that resistance in wild radish to 2,4-D is in fact not metabolic resistance.  Take a listen to this podcast to learn more about how she figured this out and what it means. You can then head on over and read AHRI insight on this research, which hopefully will make much more sense after Danica's explanation! Here's the link: https://ahri.uwa.edu.au/24-d-resistance-in-radish-is-not-metabolic-resistance/You can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.

Rainfall is obviously a key driver in leaching herbicides from stubble before they dissipate, but as we all know rain can be unpredictable. Fortunately, research has shown that some pre-emergent herbicides require far less rainfall to move off stubble and into the soil where they can control germinating weeds.So, what happens when there’s no rainfall? Research has also shown that some herbicides can remain on stubble for long periods and still be active when rain occurs up to two weeks post-application (two weeks was the longest period tested). This is a pretty valuable attribute for dry sowing – as understandably growers can be reluctant to spend money on premium pre-emergent herbicides if there’s no rain in sight!This latest research by Dr Yaseen Khalil from AHRI compared the effect of rainfall on leaching of Sakura (pyroxasulfone), Arcade/Countdown (prosulfocarb) and trifluralin applied to wheat stubble.In a nutshell, Sakura was the best option in heavy stubble loads, leaching into the soil with just 5 mm

Some new research by AHRI PhD student, Huan Lu, has shed some light on Atrazine resistant wild radish and the results have some very practical applications for growers and agronomists.The most common target site mutation that causes Atrazine resistance in wild radish is the 264 mutation, the same mutation that gave us TT Canola. They have very high resistance to Atrazine and as it turns out they are super-sensitive to Bromoxynil, requiring only about a third of the Brom rate that it takes to kill susceptible wild radish. Wild radish with the 264 mutation is also resistant to metribuzin.Huan Lu also discovered a new target site mutation, the 274 mutation that causes modest levels of resistance to Atrazine, Metribuzin and Diuron but not Bromoxynil.You can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.

AHRI was a GRDC initiative which started back in 1998 under the guidance and direction of Professor Stephen Powles. This coming Sunday the AHRI Team will be hosting a dinner with AHRI stakeholders to celebrate AHRI's 20 year milestone. Many significant discoveries and practice changes have come about through AHRI being in existence. AHRI Centre Manager Lisa Mayer provides an overview of some of the significant achievements AHRI has had over the last 20 years and also delves into the future direction the research group is heading in.You can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.

It’s been a big year for AHRI. Former AHRI Director, Stephen Powles retired from the position earlier in the year, with Professor Hugh Beckie from Canada taking on the role. We also saw the opening of the GRDC-funded Agronomy Laboratory at the University of Western Australia. Research is at the core of what we do though and we didn’t do that in halves this year either! Not only did AHRI produce significant papers, but other weed science groups nationally also made important discoveries. In this podcast, AHRI Director Hugh Beckie gives an overview of the year that was and provides some insights into what's to come for AHRI in 2019.You can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.

Today on AHRI Snapshots, we’re speaking with Development Officer Glen Riethmuller, from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development Western Australia, about spray swathing and desiccating canola for ryegrass seed set control.You can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.

In this edition of AHRI Snapshots, we’re speaking with Director of Weed Research at the Plant Breeding Institute, University of Sydney, Michael Walsh about a recent research paper on crop competition and its influence on harvest weed seed control on ryegrass. We know crop competition is great at suppressing weeds, but what we have learned from this research is that crop competition makes other weed control techniques, such as harvest weed seed control work better. This research was published in the paper “Influence of Crop Competition and Harvest Weed Seed Control on Rigid Ryegrass (Lolium rigidum) Seed Retention Height in Wheat Crop Canopies”. Our Southern Extension Agronomist Kirrily Condon recently did AHRI insight on this topic too. You can read about it further here: https://ahri.uwa.edu.au/behind-every-successful-hwsc-approach-is-crop-competition/You can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.

The AHRI research paper: Glyphosate resistance in Tridax procumbens via a novel EPSPS Thr-102-Ser substitution", by Li et al, was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2018.This paper is a collaborative effort with researchers coming from China to AHRI and with modelling from Alex Nyporko from Kiev, Ukraine. Lead author Dr Jingbo Li from Hunan University and second author Dr Qiong Peng were visiting fellows in AHRI supported by the China Scholarship Council.In this research, it was first established that Tridax, a global tropical weed species, evolved glyphosate resistance in the Ord River irrigation area in north-western Western Australia.This is the first report of glyphosate resistance in Tridax. The mechanism of glyphosate resistance was studied.  Various possible resistance mechanisms were NOT responsible for resistance (EPSPS gene amplification, different glyphosate uptake or translocation). In this glyphosate-resistant Tridax population, the glyphosate resistance mechanism is

Jinyi Chen is an AHRI PhD Candidate studying trifluralin resistance mechanisms in annual ryegrass. Annual ryegrass is a very serious crop weed in Australia causing significant yield loss. The pre-emergence herbicide trifluralin has been used since the 1970s in Australia to control ryegrassThe first trifluralin resistant annual ryegrass plant was reported in 1995. Recently, increasing trifluralin resistant ryegrass populations were reported in Western Australia and South Australia. This was covered in our recent AHRI insight #105 (https://ahri.uwa.edu.au/alphabet-cross-resistance-in-south-australia/).In her research, Jinyi has found that all the four annual ryegrass populations or biotypes tested contained metabolic resistance mechanisms, with target site resistance being involved in two of them. Take a listen to the podcast to learn more about Jinyi's work and some of the possible solutions to dealing with trifluralin resistance. We recently released an AHRI insight on Jinyi's work which you can rea

In this podcast, we’re getting an insight into the 21st Australasian Weeds Conference, which this year was held in Manly.The AWC is a biennial conference and carries on a long tradition of bringing the weed management community together to discuss new developments and share information about cutting-edge and best weed management practices.AHRI Communications Lead, Jessica Strauss, was lucky enough to attend and caught up with Dr Michael Widderick, who is the Principal Research Scientist at the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. He presented at the conference on “Research priorities for weed suppression by crops in Australia”.You can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.

In this podcast we catch up with AHRI Research Officer Roberto Lujan Rocha. This is the first time Roberto has been on the podcast. We learn about what the AHRI agronomy team, led by Mike Ashworth, is up to with their research trials and get a better understanding of how the new GRDC Agronomy Lab is operating since its June opening.You can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.

Chaff lining has been increasing in popularity in the Harvest Weed Seed Control (HWSC) scene over the past two seasons. A survey of WeedSmart subscribers showed the percentage of growers using chaff lining increased from 6% in 2016 to 26% in 2017.Despite this rapid uptake of chaff lining, there really was no data available specific to its efficacy!However, there's now compelling research data coming through for chaff lining and it seems you get really good value for money and it does suppress weed emergence.In brief, this GRDC funded (US00084) research by members of the northern region weeds team, John Broster (Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga), Michael Walsh and Annie Rayner (University of Sydney, Narrabri) and Annie Ruttledge (Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Toowoomba, Queensland) showed that:- As chaff levels increase, the emergence of weeds from under the chaff decreases;- Small-seeded broadleaf weeds (eg. sowthistle) are more easily suppressed than annual ryegrass; and- Chaff type can

AHRI Director Hugh Beckie recently moved over from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, to take on the position of AHRI Director. In this podcast we get to learn more about Hugh's professional life and some of his interests outside of work too. Hugh also shares with us his vision for AHRI in its new chapter. Hugh is an international expert on herbicide resistance in plants, with a focus on management strategies, tactics, and practises. He is a Fellow of the Weed Science Society of America and Canadian Weed Science Society, and recipient of the QEII Diamond Jubilee Medal.The AHRI Team have been getting to know Hugh over the last few weeks and now it's your chance to learn more about him. Take a listen!You can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.

Barley Grass RIM came about through the GRDC-funded ‘Maintaining profitable farming systems with retained stubble’ initiative that included an objective of promoting pro-active weed management strategies. Brome grass has become a critical ‘driver’ weed in several grain growing districts under no-till systems and in some areas such as Upper Eyre Peninsula barley grass is having a big influence on the cropping system. Using the RIM approach to testing the best IWM strategies has been valuable for ryegrass management over a long period, so it was an obvious step to provide agronomists, farmers and researchers with a RIM tool for these other major grass weeds. The new Barley Grass RIM has been developed using the AHRI RIM tool by CSIRO with support from the University of Adelaide and University of Western Australia, funded by GRDC.CSIRO Adelaide's Agricultural Economist Dr Marta Monjardino explains the functions and benefits of the new Barley RIM in this podcast.You can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn

While 2,4-D is an old herbicide, there's actually a huge knowledge gap that researchers like AHRI’s Dr Danica Goggin are trying hard to fill in a bid to find ways to overcome resistance to this herbicide group in weeds like wild radish.In her research, Danica identified a very plausible resistance mechanism in two wild radish populations. She then went on to test the translocation theory in another nine 2,4-D resistant populations of wild radish from WA.Danica characterised the resistance profile of the 11 resistant populations to find that resistance to 2,4-D and dicamba appears to be capped.Looking more closely at these 11 resistant populations also revealed that while all 2,4-D resistant populations were also resistant to dicamba, the level of resistance to the two herbicides varied.This suggests there’s no consistent cross-resistance to these two auxinic herbicides within a population.Conducting the same experiment with the radioactive 2,4-D applied to the leaves, Danica also found that translocation

Professor Stephen Powles hung up his hat as AHRI Director last week. In this interview, AHRI Comms Lead Jessica Strauss asks Steve about his time at AHRI and what the future holds for the research group. Take a listen!You can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.

In this podcast, we're celebrating the 100th edition of AHRI insight!Music: bensound.comYou can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.

There are few herbicide options for sowthistle control in chickpea crops, making the perfect recipe for a good ol’ sowthistle blowout. Despite all of this, the latest research by Michael Widderick, Adam McKiernan and Greg Harvey from QDAF with GRDC investment is finding that chickpeas can win the competition against sowthistle if they stack their deck. Growing a chickpea crop at narrow row spacing and high crop density in northern cropping regions can greatly reduce sowthistle seed production without reducing chickpea yield. Take a listen to find out more!Music: bensound.comYou can follow AHRI on Twitter here. To learn more about AHRI's research and team, check out the website here.