Les enseignants: à la recherche de leur profession

Les Enseignants: à la recherche de leur profession reprend les idées centrales présentées à la Conférence donnée, sur l'invitation de l'ATEE, au Séminaire de Barcelone, en 1993. Cet article est la reproduction du texte de support à la Conférence. Étant donné l'espace disponible, il n'a pas été possible de le travailler dans le sens d'une plus grande problématisation et élaboration théorique

Summary: 13th Australian Soybean Conference

[Extract] I thank the Organisers for asking me to present a Summary Overview of the Conference. I approach the task from the point of view of someone who 'cut his teeth' on soybeans 37 years ago but has been away from the industry for the past 10 years. I do so by addressing four questions: What remains much the same? What has changed? What were some of the conference highlights? What are the key challenges for the future

CRC sugar: an experiment in a novel approach to sugar industry R&D

CRC Sugar was established in 1995 to undertake research and education to build the skills and technology for a competitive and environmentally responsible sugar industry. CRC Sugar was constituted as a collaborative joint venture between 13 organisations: the five major sugar milling companies (Bundaberg Sugar, CSR Sugar, Mackay Sugar, NSW Sugar and Sugar North), CANEGROWERS, BSES, SRDC, two divisions of CSIRO, the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines and three universities, The University of Queensland, Central Queensland University and James Cook University, the centre host. Together, these 13 organisations conduct ~85% of sugar R&D. CRC Sugar’s operational strategy has been to add value to the work, through collaborative, multi-disciplinary research, to tackle difficult or complex ‘systems’ issues in partnership with research end-users. CRC Sugar has leveraged an additional $3.5 million annually into sugar R&D, in the form of competitive CRC Program cash, in-kind contributions from extra-industry research providers, and conditional establishment grants from the Queensland and NSW governments. Among CRC Sugar researchers’ key achievements are the pioneering ‘whole-of-industry’ approach to alternative options for cane supply scheduling; a science-based understanding of the industry’s water quality and other environmental impacts; improved management of acid sulfate soils; a targetted approach to customising nutrient management to local needs, taking account of soil type and nutrient recycling from mill muds, effluent and green cane trash blanketing (GCTB); tools to maximise economic returns from limited water; tools and approaches for ameliorating soil sodicity and acidity; better understanding of the wet tropics low CCS issue; a range of decision support tools to assess options and explore risks and trade-offs; and an innovative education and training program. Benefit: cost analysis of selected projects indicated that the potential benefit from the cane supply options work alone exceeds the aggregate 8-year cost of the Centre. There were ‘transaction’ costs in operating CRC Sugar, mainly in the form of the time and effort spent on building collaborative links with other researchers and industry, and on accountability. The main gap when CRC Sugar’s term ends will be in the nature and extent of environmental research, with much of the ongoing research diverting to organisations focussed on environmental protection rather than sustainable sugar production. CRC Sugar’s legacies include the whole-of-industry approach to exploring options for securing operational efficiencies, a comprehensive, science-based appraisal of the industry’s environmental footprint, ‘best bet’ options for improved environmental management, stronger industry engagement by extra-industry research providers, and a paradigm shift in favour of collaborative, participative, systems-based research

CRC Sugar: strategic objectives, operation and management 1995-2000

[Extract] The Centre addresses two issues of major economic, environmental and social importance to Australia:\ud maintaining the international competitiveness of an industry of major national importance while protecting\ud environmentally sensitive areas of world heritage value. Its outputs reflect ‘public good’ and ‘direct industry\ud benefit’ elements

Application of physiological understanding in soybean improvement. I. Understanding phenological constraints to adaptation and yield potential

The purpose of this paper and its companion1 is to describe how, in eastern Australia, soybean improvement, in terms of both breeding and agronomy, has been informed and influenced over the past four decades by physiological understanding of the environmental control of phenology. This first paper describes how initial attempts to grow soybean in eastern Australia, using varieties and production practices from the southern USA, met with limited success due to large variety × environment interaction effects on seed yield. In particular, there were large variety × location, variety × sowing date, and variety × sowing date × density effects. These various interaction effects were ultimately explained in terms of the effects of photo-thermal environment on the phenology of different varieties, and the consequences for radiation interception, dry matter production, harvest index, and seed yield. This knowledge enabled the formulation of agronomic practices to optimise sowing date and planting arrangement to suit particular varieties, and underpinned the establishment of commercial production in south-eastern Queensland in the early 1970s. It also influenced the establishment and operation over the next three decades of several separate breeding programs, each targeting phenological adaptation to specific latitudinal regions of eastern Australia. This paper also describes how physiological developments internationally, particularly the discovery of the long juvenile trait and to a lesser extent the semi-dwarf ideotype, subsequently enabled an approach to be conceived for broadening the phenological adaptation of soybeans across latitudes and sowing dates. The application of this approach, and its outcomes in terms of varietal improvement, agronomic management, and the structure of the breeding program, are described in the companion paper

Application of physiological understanding in soybean improvement. II. Broadening phenological adaptation across regions and sowing dates

This paper describes the implementation of a strategy to develop high-yielding soybean cultivars with wider adaptation across latitudes and sowing dates using the ‘long juvenile’ (LJ) trait to ‘convert’ elite temperate cultivars to subtropical and tropical adaptation. In an initial proof-of-concept evaluation, temperate semi-dwarf cultivars from Ohio in the Mid-West of the USA (40°N) were converted into genotypes adapted to the subtropics of southern Queensland (25–28°S), of which cv. Melrose was the first to be released for commercial production. The effect of the LJ trait was to delay flowering of the new genotypes by 10–14 days depending on temperature, while retaining the high yield potential and lodging resistance of the temperate varieties. The temperate cultivars were insensitive to photoperiod in the subtropics, and this attribute was largely retained in cv. Melrose. The LJ trait was also used to convert temperate culinary soybean varieties from eastern Asia to subtropical–tropical adaptation, although susceptibility to disease required the simultaneous introgression of resistance genes from additional sources. Several elite LJ oilseed and culinary varieties with broad adaptation in eastern Australia have since been developed. Like Melrose, these varieties are earlier maturing (110–125 days duration) than traditional, full-season cultivars (120–140 days depending on sowing date), less sensitive to photoperiod, and require higher plant populations than full-season varieties for maximum yield. However, they can be grown over a wider range of latitudes and sowing dates than full-season varieties. Similarly, the LJ trait was used to delay flowering of very early flowering, photoperiod-insensitive soybean varieties used in Asian farming systems, increasing yield potential without changing photoperiod insensitivity. The broadening of varietal adaptation over latitudes and sowing dates has allowed public soybean breeding resources to be rationalised, with one national Australian program replacing four previous, regionally focused programs. The research provides a tangible example of how physiological understanding of genotype × environment interaction contributed to soybean improvement in eastern Australia

Applications of industry information in sugarcane\ud production systems

The Australian sugar industry collects, during normal commercial operations, data on the production of sugarcane,\ud although the nature and extent of the information varies considerably between regions. These data have become increasingly accessible to researchers who, through various analytical methods, have shown that this information can be used for a range of purposes. Examples include the development of regional models to predict CCS in response to rainfall, the estimation of genetic gain over an extended period across many regions, the development of alternative options to improve the efficiency of cane supply to the mill, the assessment of trends in productivity (including intra-regional spatial and temporal\ud productivity trends), and the identification of attributes of the production system that affect productivity. Experience has shown that, while they are essentially empirical in nature, these analyses can be used to define problems within the industry and either initiate or complement more traditional agronomic and genetic research necessary to solve these problems. This paper reviews the different ways that industry information has been used to facilitate decision-making and their value in the identification of problems such as a chronic decline in CCS in the wet tropics. The merits of expanding this type of approach in the sugar industry more generally are also discussed

Comparative study of indigenous Vigna vexillata (L.) A. Rich. accessions from different latitudes in Indonesia and Australia

A comparative study was conducted of the growth and development of 12 wild accessions of Vigna vexillata from a range of locations from eastern Indonesia to south-eastern Australia. In anticipation that accessions from different latitudes may exhibit differential adaptive photoperiodic response, the plants were exposed to a range of extended photoperiods during their growth. There was significant variation among the accessions for a wide range of traits, although differences in phenology were relatively smaller than those in vegetative biomass and seed and tuber yield. Accessions that produced more vegetative biomass tended to produce more tuber biomass but smaller seed yields. While average biomass production was similar between the Indonesian and Australian accessions, the former tended to produce less seed and smaller tuber biomass. There were no consistent relations between phenology and latitude of provenance. Nor were there any apparent relations between latitude and biomass or latitude and seed yield. However, both the tuber dry weight and the tuber harvest index were progressively greater in accessions from higher latitudes. There were no apparent effects of extended day length on phenology. However, longer days tended to promote vegetative development and reduce partitioning to seeds and tubers, consistent with short-day photoperiodic response. It is suggested that flowering was unaffected by photoperiod treatments because the plants were induced to flower by the short late-winter day-lengths before the treatments were applied. Consistent with this explanation, all plants in all treatments flowered and set pods quickly in all treatments

Seeds of Vigna marina (Burm.) Merrill survive up to 25 years flotation in salt water

Vigna marina (Burm.) Merrill is a pan-tropical legume found in littoral zone vegetation in north-eastern Australia and nearby islands. Its seeds are buoyant and ocean currents are the presumed main mechanism for its dispersal. In 1985, we immersed seeds in salt water to see how long they would remain buoyant and viable. In 2010, we germinated and grew plants from some of the last of these seeds. We concluded that given reasonably favourable conditions the potential exists for viable seeds to be dispersed over vast distances on ocean currents