Research goes underground for assistance

摘要

Graingrowers could soon have a workforce of billions helping them drive crop yield. The living earth is the new frontier in agricultural research for better cropping and a 10 million dollar soil biology initiative is acting fast to uncover the benefits of this dirty science, with a project recently launched in Western Australia. Supported by growers and the Federal Government through the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), the collaborative project between the University of WA (UWA)and the Department of Agriculture, with support from CSIRO, the South Australia Research and Development Institute and Rothamsted Research in the United Kingdom, is investigating soil biological constraints to yield in WA. To put the vast world of soil biology in perspective, consider that the number of microbes in a handful of soil is greater than the number of humans that have ever lived.