A replanting program at Dareton Primary Industries Institute has established five hectares of new navel oranges, young planted blocks that will provide a resource for revenue, trial and grower extension activities.

Australia's key citrus production research facility conducts evaluations of new citrus rootstocks and varieties, plant nutrient and soil water management, and international co-operative programs.

In these times, the main focus of these current horticultural research and extension projects incorporates drought survival, recovery and irrigation training to an advanced level for NSW growers.

In 2010, several superior Poncirus trifoliata selections of native citrus types from China, such as Tange, Donghai and Zao Yang will go to second stage evaluations in the Riverina region, as part of Dareton's international program.

These are being assessed for their suitability as rootstocks to improve yield, fruit quality, disease resistance and salt tolerance.

The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and Horticulture Australia Ltd (HAL), have supported an ongoing relationship with China since the late 1980s to evaluate a range of their native citrus types in Australia.

International collaborations have also progressed for several years in Pakistan and Bhutan.

The Institute also provides a strong extension function to the region with specialist extension officers for citrus, grapevines, vegetables, irrigation, agronomy and rangelands.

Though the station's capital resources are down to bare bones in tough economic times with grim climate, a recent review by the former NSW Department of Primary Industries reconfirmed citrus as a horticultural industry of major benefit to the State.

The national trend is for the contraction of government research and extension functions to agricultural producers.

"However, horticultural research and extension units need to maintain a critical mass to effectively compete for government and industry funding support," long time researcher at Dareton, Graeme Sanderson, said.

Citrus research and extension capacity within the newly created Industry and Investment NSW is the most significant of any State and provides strong support to the Australian industry which had export earnings in 2008 of $156m.

The success of the Dareton station and staff is demonstrated by the $6.6m of research money attracted to the facility since 1998.

In addition to HAL and ACIAR, other major funding sources have been the National Program for Sustainable Irrigation, and the Murray Darling Basin Commission.

The Dareton Primary Industries Institute occupies 243 hectares with trials, industry budwood schemes and commercial plantings comprising 56ha of the total area.

Researchers commonly retain completed citrus trials and impose other experiments on them, to lower setup costs and help make them a more attractive funding option for industry.

All plantings are irrigated by predominantly drip or under tree sprinkler systems and water volumes applied determined by a range of devices such as EnviroScan soil moisture probes.

The station is located in the far south west corner of NSW, 25 kilometres from Mildura, Victoria and in the centre the Sunraysia citrus and grape production region.

The recent employment of a Veterinary officer has reintroduced this service into far south western NSW while regulatory functions are also provided from the Institute through fisheries and foresty officers.

Contact Dareton Primary Industries Institute, (03) 5019 8400.