AW Howard Memorial Trust Fellows

2003 - Mr Lindsay Bell

Natasha is near the end of my PhD and in the final stages of lab work and writing up my thesis. Her project has involved physiological studies of salinity and waterlogging interactions in perennial Lotus species that have been published (Teakle et al 2006 Plant and Soil; Teakle et al 2007 Journal of Experimental Botany). Further work has been done to identify some of the genes involved in tolerance to salinity and waterlogging. Natasha has cloned and sequenced genes controlling ion transport under salt stress in Lotus tenuis, with most of this work completed at Glasgow University, Scotland.

The AW Howard Fellowship has helped her enormously with the progress of my PhD project. In particular, the AW Howard fellowship enabled Natasha to undertake extended research trips to the UK. While it is sometimes possible to acquire extra funds for research costs, it is very difficult to get funding to help with living costs, which are much greater in the UK compared to Australia. Thanks to the top-stipend provided by the AW Howard Fellowship, Natasha was able to afford to live in the UK while completing research essential to my project, and this provided me with training and skills not easily available in Australia.

2005 Research Fellowship Media Release

2006

Mr Richard Bennett
Adaptation and evaluation of Australian Cullen species for use as perennial pastures in Western Australia

My research will evaluate and test the adaptation of Australian Cullen species for use as perennial pastures in Western Australia.  The AW Howard Memorial Trust is generously supporting my research through a Research Fellowship.  The extra stipend this offers allows me to concentrate wholly on this large and detailed project.  I have also been awarded an AW Howard Travel Grant to travel to the 2008 Joint International Grasslands and Rangelands Congress in China to present my research and forge links with international researchers which will be very valuable for my future research career.  My research is also supported by the University of WA, Meat and Livestock Australia and the Future Farm Industries CRC.

Cullen are a group of Australian native legumes that occur naturally in the arid rangeland regions of Australia but are largely unknown to agriculture.  These native plants are well adapted to the harsh climate and difficult soils of Australia and I believe that Cullen species may be useful as perennial pastures in areas of WA’s wheatbelt where introduced perennial pastures do not perform well. 

I will characterise Australian Cullen species and test their potential to provide a profitable perennial pasture system on acidic or waterlogged soils of low rainfall areas in WA’s wheatbelt.  My research consists of five stages: an ecogeographic study to predict which species will be naturally adapted the target environment; a wheatbelt field trial to test the adaptation to the target environment; a common garden experiment to measure the amount of diversity in the existing germplasm collection; selection of a core collection, and; glasshouse studies to identify tolerance to acid soils and waterlogging.

Mr Ian Andrew White

In the Western District of Victoria, pasture systems are typically based on perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) due to its high nutritive value, its ability to tolerate grazing  and its ease of establishment.  However, perennial ryegrass based pastures often do not persist due to the hot dry summers that are typical in the district.  Therefore, an opportunity exists in the Western District of Victoria to improve pasture persistence and production, especially over summer and to fill the summer feed gap by using summer-active tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum. syn. Festuca arundinacea) as an alternative pasture species because it is adapted to surviving and remaining productive over the hot summer period by utilising out of season rainfall and moisture from the soil profile.  However, little is know about how to manage summer-active tall fescue in the Western District of Victoria.  Therefore, my project, with the support of the AW Howard Memorial Trust, aims to develop guidelines for the establishment, grazing and fertilisation of summer-active tall fescue to produce persistent high yielding quality feed for livestock.

2007 Research Fellowship Media Release

Mr Dion Nicol

2008 Research Fellowship Media Release