Richard Bennett

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

Richard’s study seeks to characterise Australian species from the genus Cullen, a collection of plants largely unknown to agriculture, and to test their potential to provide a profitable perennial pasture system on acidic soils of WA’s low rainfall wheatbelt – an environment where options for perennial pastures are very limited.

Richard’s research falls into the CRC’s Program 2 research area and is related to the Perennial Legumes Forages For a Dry Mediterranean Climate Project.

Objectives:

• Undertake an ecogeographic study to predict which species will be naturally adapted the target environment and to assess the degree of natural variation captured by an existing germplasm collection
• Conduct a WA wheatbelt field trial using the existing germplasm collections of those species selected to test the adaptation to the target environment
• Conduct a common garden experiment to measure the amount of diversity within and between the existing germplasm collection and to provide material for chemical and nutritional analysis
• Create a core collection based on the results from the common garden experiment (a reduced number of accessions that are representative of the diversity of the whole collection)
• Conduct glasshouse studies on the core collection to identify the physiological adaptations that provide tolerance to acid soils.

For more information, email Richard.