Environmental and Agricultural Health Team

Agrichar used for carbon sequestration and nutrient promotion in field crops

The Environmental and Agricultural Health (EAH) Team is a multi-disciplinary team of scientists skilled in environmental and agricultural chemistry, ecotoxicology and biology. It forms part of the Soils, Recycled Organics and Environmental Health unit of the Science & Research division of NSW DPI.

The EAH Team provides research, consultancies and analytical support to a wide range of clients including government, industry and private land holders, and has research affiliations with national and international universities.

Our research focus areas include:

• develop and implement remediation technologies to address contamination issues
• CALUX® for detecting endocrine disrupting chemicals
• advanced GCMS analysis of organic compounds
• carbon sequestration and soil amendment
• greenhouse gas abatement techniques
• soil health assessment
• ecotoxicology

Our laboratory is state-of-the-art with ISO9001:2000 accreditation. The team also holds a licence for the CALUX® technology and performs NATA accredited methods for the Dioxin responsive CALUX® test.

For more information, see the Environmental and Agricultural Health (733kb) brochure, or contact:

Dr Lukas van Zwieten
Environmental and Agricultural Health team
NSW Department of Primary Industries
Wollongbar Agricultural Institute
1243 Bruxner Highway
Wollongbar, NSW 2477
Australia

Phone: + 61 (0) 2 6626 1200
E-mail: wollongbar.office@dpi.nsw.gov.au

Chemical Ecology and Essential Oil Research Unit

Wollongbar Agricultural Institute’s Chemical Ecology and Essential Oil Unit aims to increase the productivity and market potential of tea tree and other essential oils by investigating the selection and breeding, agronomy, ecology, processing and chemical quality of the crops and products. The unit also contributes chemistry expertise to research projects involving chemical ecology and secondary metabolites.

Its tea tree selection and breeding research aims to increase oil yield and quality by obtaining seed from the best bush trees, establishing seed and clonal orchards, and releasing improved seed to growers.

The unit conducts research and development projects that assess the oil quality of volatile oil species such as sandalwood, lavender, geranium, rosemary and non commercial myrtaceous and rutaceous native plants such as eucalyptus and lemon myrtle. It also investigates the volatile pheromones that affect insect pest behaviour, especially for the insect pests of the North Coast horticultural industries such as macadamias.

The unit offers collaboration in volatile constituent research and development.  This service provides comprehensive oil quality and yield testing using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, extraction and steam distillation. A list of analytical tests is available.

Food Safety and Epidemiology

The Animal Health and Food Sciences research unit based at Wollongbar focuses on the management of food-bourne hazards during the production, trade, preparation and consumption of food.

Our interests extend to:

• minimising the public health and economic impact of food safety issues
• efficient allocation of resources for the control of hazards
• facilitating the trade in food commodities
• evidence-based decision making in food safety

The approach to research is based on a blend of epidemiology, applied microbiology, pathobiology, statistics and simulation. Examples of applications are in the safety of animal-derived foods, antimicrobial resistance, indicator organisms, zoonotic pathogens (such as Salmonella and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli), and the evaluation of surveillance and measurement systems in food safety.

Well established links exist with industry, public health, researchers and policy makers in Australia and internationally. Laboratory support for the assay and detection of a broad range of hazards is available on site at Wollongbar Agricultural Institute.

Environmental Microbiology

The Biotechnology and Environmental Microbiology laboratory is a multi-disciplinary facility designated for environmental microbiological studies.

The research ranges from fundamental studies concerned with soil health to the more practical approaches such as developing bio-augmentation procedures to yield environmentally beneficial results in bioremediation. The research combines molecular biology techniques with traditional microbiological methods to examine microbial activates in natural and engineered environments.

Research directions include

• measuring population changes and identification of microorganisms involved in, pesticide degradation (atrazine, ethion, DDT), suppression of soil plant pathogens (phytophthora and black-root rot), biotic constrains in Northern Australian grain soils and vegetative filter strips.
• development of delivery methods for applying beneficial microorganisms to the field and environment (atrazine degrading bacteria).
• genetic bacterial strain construction (whole-cell biosensors for water, food and waste industries) horizontal transfer of antimicrobial genes in wastewater treatment plants.
• conversion of lignocellulosic and agricultural waste into biofuels