Facilities and resources at Wagga Wagga Agricultural Institute
The Wagga Wagga Agricultural Institute is situated on 893ha of land. The land is run as 5 mini farms (farmlets) each with their own crop/pasture rotation that allows paddocks to be “set up” in terms of soil fertility and weed burdens for the research group that will be using them in any one year.
As an example one of the plant breeding programs requires paddocks to have a certain soil nitrogen status when evaluating new genetic material. This need is met by rotating crops across the paddocks within a “farmlet” in the previous years to use or add soil nitrogen so that it is at the desired level in the target paddock in the year that the new wheat lines need to be sown grown.
Commercial enterprises
In addition to supporting a large number of field-based research programs, the Institute also conducts commercial winter cereal cropping and prime lamb production enterprises. Irrigation water is available under license from the Murrumbidgee River, and is used in both flood and overhead applications.
Laboratories
Besides a large land area dedicated to agricultural research, the Wagga Wagga Agricultural Institute has state-of-the-art laboratories, including a Molecular Biology and Biotechnology laboratory built in 2003, a Plant Health Laboratory (housing soil microbiology, plant pathology and entomology research groups) built in 2005, an Edible Oil Testing Laboratory built in 2006 and a number of new glasshouses, including one that is to PC2 standard also built in 2006. The 2007-08 financial year will see the construction of a Ruminant Feed Testing laboratory, to support the Feed Quality Testing Service. Two modern training laboratories are located at the Wine and Food Industry Training Centre.
The Institute has world class accreditation for its laboratories and facilities.
Aside from these recent built laboratories and glasshouses, Institute staff have access to soil and agronomy facilities such as dehydrators for plant and soil samples, growth cabinets, a range of glasshouses, seed cleaning and grading equipment and laboratories that can undertake cereal chemistry analysis and feed stuff analysis. Staff also have access to a fleet of tractors, seeding equipment and small plot harvestors for plant breeding and agronomy trials.
Animal Nutrition Facility
A modern Animal Nutrition Facility is located at the Institute, enabling intensive studies to be conducted on ruminant feeds (hay, grain, silage or mixed rations) using either sheep or cattle.
The Institute also has conference and meeting room facilities, and hosts a number of small and large industry-based meetings annually. A small research library is also located at the Institute.