NemGenix won its funding to work on drought tolerance in biofuel crops, with a focus on developing a GM crop trait that can be incorporated in sugarcane to provide resistance to plant parasitic nematodes.

These small, thread-like organisms devastate root systems, dramatically limiting water and nutrient uptake and annually cause $167 billion losses globally across all crop species.

Sugarcane, the world’s leading biofuel crop, is the focus of the NemGenix work, as it is highly susceptible to plant parasitic nematodes, with yield reductions of up to 20 per cent recorded in Australia.

Sugarcane also has particularly high water requirements, consuming as much as all of the world’s fruit and vegetable crops (WHO, 2005).

NemGenix chief scientific officer, Professor Mike Jones, said that despite the enormous losses caused by plant parasitic nematodes, very little has been done to develop nematode resistant crops.

Instead, agriculture has relied on control by highly toxic pesticides, or otherwise has just tolerated the losses.

"A healthy root system is essential for effective water and nutrient uptake," Prof. Jones said.

"Without it the effects of reduced rainfall conditions associated with climate change will be far more severe."

The NemGenix work uses state-of-the-art molecular technologies to tackle a devastating root pathogen in a way that can be applied to many other biofuel and food crops.