Scientists from New Zealand’s Tauranga’s PlantTech Research Institute are celebrating their involvement in two successful funding bids to the Ministry for Business, Innovation & Employment’s (MBIE) Endeavour Fund, Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest contestable research fund. Source: Timberbiz
In this year’s round of funding, 69 new scientific research projects were awarded more than NZ$244 million.
Tauranga headquartered PlantTech Research Institute is leading a two-year international project, that will use airborne remote sensors to discover what is causing plant stress in kiwifruit orchards, thanks to a successful bid for NZ$1 million.
Another MBIE-funded project, led by Scion, Seeing the forest for the trees: transforming tree phenotyping for future forests, involves using PlantTech’s capability in hyperspectral imagery analysis to support research that will identify the best genotype to plant in different environments for commercial production and indigenous uses.
The institute is working with project lead Scion on a five-year, NZ$9.6 million project called ‘Seeing the Forest for the Trees: transforming tree phenotyping for future forests’ that will explore the phenotype (characteristics) of trees to identify trees that grow well in specific environments.
The research program is focussed on forest phenotyping using remotely sensed data and advanced concepts in data science. Combined with genomic data, Scion expects to select and breed trees with traits such as high carbon storage and resistance to disease and drought. For example, in Gisborne it may become more important to use a drought resistant radiata pine if droughts increase in severity.
Scion Data and Geospatial Intelligence principal scientist Dr Mike Watt welcomes PlantTech’s participation in the project, citing their advanced capability in hyperspectral imaging technologies.
PlantTech will use this technology to assess the attributes of trees that can’t be seen by the naked eye, such as the tree’s ability to deal with water stress or disease.
“You can’t see those problems so easily with the eye, but hyperspectral imagery can be used to look beyond the visible wavelengths to characterise these traits,” he says.
By the end of the project, Scion plans to have a climate-based deployment guideline developed for radiata pine. Effectively, this would be a map showing where each genotype can be allocated throughout Aotearoa New Zealand to optimise productivity or resistance against water or drought stress.
“We know that if you optimally allocate different genotypes to the right site, then you can get a gain of 20% in productivity. That translates into quite a bit of value for radiata pine,” says Dr Watt.
Radiata pine is not the only focus of the program. Indigenous forests will also be included, as Scion aims to explore the cultural links that Māori have to forests and taonga (treasure) species. For example, the researchers want to find out what cultural phenotypes are important to Māori, such as a tree’s potential for carving.
It is hoped that cultural phenotyping could incentivise the planting of indigenous tree species leading to more diverse forests and more opportunities for Māori to harvest indigenous trees for carving or other traditional uses.
