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CSIRO Media Release |
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12 November 1998 |
Ref 98/266 |
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CSIRO today announced the go-ahead for a new weapon in Australia's war on the $3 billion weed menace, with the approval for a multi-million dollar quarantine facility at its Floreat Park Research Laboratory in Perth, Western Australia.
"The facility is a major investment by CSIRO in Western Australia and in the national battle against both environmental and agricultural weeds," CSIRO Deputy Chief Executive Dr John Radcliffe says.
Dr Radcliffe said that the new quarantine facility will streamline the importation of insects to control serious weeds and will add another string to our biological control bow.
"The beneficiaries are all Australians," he says. "Ultimately we all pay the price of weed invasion."
Weeds are estimated to cost the Australian economy more than $3.3 billion per year. Biological control of weeds aims to bring some of the more important national weeds under control and reduce their impact in a safe and environmentally benign manner.
"There are many weeds of agricultural and environmental significance in Western Australia. Initial research involving testing of possible control insects is carried out overseas and can be expensive and time consuming. The new facility will allow screening of potential biological control agents to be completed in WA to deliver results in a much shorter time," says Mr Mick Poole, Head of CSIRO's Centre for Mediterranean Agricultural Research in Perth.
"Quarantine is the most important step in a biological control program, ensuring that insects brought into the country are actually safe to release," explains CSIRO Entomology research scientist Mr Tim Woodburn.
"The quarantine phase of a project involves rigorous testing to ensure that only the target weed is attacked by the biological control agent. It also ensures that the insect is free from other pests and diseases.
"The new facility will allow insects which cause disease to be tested in WA for the first time. At present the quarantine facility in Canberra is the only one in Australia approved for testing such insects, and that approval has only recently been granted."
In recent years one insect has been released to control double gee in Western Australia and an application is currently being assessed by the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service and Environment Australia to release another to control bridal creeper. Several other insects have been identified which attack these weeds and testing will continue in the new facility.
"Initially the facility will be used for screening agents for the biological control of weeds, but scope exists for future expansion into control of insect pests associated with pests in Mediterranean agricultural systems," Dr Radcliffe says.
The new facility should be in operation by late 1999.
More information:
Dr John Radcliffe, CSIRO, 08 8303 8580
email: John.Radcliffe@exec.csiro.au
Mr Tim Woodburn 08 9333 6647
email: tim.woodburn@ento.csiro.au,
or
Mr Mick Poole 08 9333 6620
email: mick.poole@ccmar.csiro.au
Visit CSIRO Entomology's Web Site: www.ento.csiro.au
(Australia's largest scientific research organisation)
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