MAJOR Australian grain breeder InterGrain has announced a collaboration with international pre-breeding business Inari that the two businesses hope will boost wheat yields in Australia by up to 15 per cent.
The partnership brings together InterGrain's Australian wheat genetics with Inari's predictive design and multiplex gene editing capabilities.
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The two companies said they hoped the deal would eventually lead to farmers getting access to unique and products with potentially transformational yield gains.
InterGrain chief executive Tress Walmsley said there was a natural complement in the skillsets of the two businesses.
"Inari's team brings a wealth of experience and knowledge, and InterGrain values the collaboration capability to bring our shared vision for a more sustainable future for agriculture to life," Ms Walmsley said.
Inari uses applied data science and software engineering to address the complex systems within plants that impact factors such as yield and water and fertiliser use efficiency.
In the US it has been involved in projects with genetic edits to genetically modified corn and soy crops to enhance insect protection and has recently won a patent for its methods of editing corn and soy's genome.
Inari chief executive Ponsi Trivisvavet said the company was delighted to be working for the first time in both Australia and in wheat.
"Our SEEDesign platform has the ability to transform any crop in any geography," Ms Trivisvavet said.
"Expanding not only into wheat but also into a new continent presents an exciting opportunity to broaden the reach and impact of our technology."
Ms Walmsley said she was excited by the potential to not only boost yields but target more efficient use of inputs.
She also clarified that all uses of the new breeding technology would meet Australian regulatory requirements.
Gregor Heard
Gregor Heard is Fairfax Ag Media's national grains industry reporter, based in Horsham, Victoria. He has a wealth of knowledge surrounding the cropping sector through his ten years in the role. Prior to that he was with the Fairfax network as a reporter with Stock & Land. Some of the major issues he has reported on during his time with the company include the deregulation of the export wheat market, the introduction of genetically modified crops and the fight to protect growers better from grain trader insolvencies. Still involved with the family farm he is passionate about rural Australia and its people and hopes to use his role to act as an advocate for those involved in the grain sector. Away from work, he is a keen traveller, having spent his long service leave last year in Spain learning the language.
Gregor Heard is Fairfax Ag Media's national grains industry reporter, based in Horsham, Victoria. He has a wealth of knowledge surrounding the cropping sector through his ten years in the role. Prior to that he was with the Fairfax network as a reporter with Stock & Land. Some of the major issues he has reported on during his time with the company include the deregulation of the export wheat market, the introduction of genetically modified crops and the fight to protect growers better from grain trader insolvencies. Still involved with the family farm he is passionate about rural Australia and its people and hopes to use his role to act as an advocate for those involved in the grain sector. Away from work, he is a keen traveller, having spent his long service leave last year in Spain learning the language.
