Spotlight stories
NSW DPI is working every day to drive economic growth in NSW by increasing the capacity of primary industries and communities.
The Spotlight section of the website features projects or activities being undertaken by DPI, often in partnership with other organisations or communities, which contribute to the DPI Strategic Plan and to the purpose of DPI.
Features in Spotlight this month:
Over the coming months you will see a lot of changes happening on the DPI website.
Starting from today, we are presenting a new website design and, over time, every piece of information we deliver online will be reviewed and migrated into the new website.
While these improvements are underway you may find that, as you navigate around the site, some pages are presented in a mixture of formats. We ask for your patience as we work through the tens of thousands of pages to ensure they contain the information needed for our customers operating at all levels of primary industries.
We are endeavouring to provide a website that contains current and relevant information in a way that is easy to find and use. We are also seeking to improve the accessibility of our content for the benefit of all users.
While this work is underway, you will continue to be able to find what you are looking for either by navigating through the site, or by using the search function.
This story aligns with the following DPI Outcomes :
- Productive partnerships with business, industry, research institutions and the community to accelerate opportunities and maximise benefits.
Cucumbers are widely grown in greenhouses across Australia. The industry is estimated to be valued at $48 million annually. A cucumber wilt disease caused by an aggressive strain of the fungus, Fusarium oxysporum has plagued this industry with yield losses between 10-50%.
Fusarium wilt can spread like a wildfire through a greenhouse. Research conducted by DPI Development Officer, Jonathan Lidbetter and Senior Plant Pathologist, Len Tesoriero at Ourimbah confirmed that cucumber varieties grafted onto resistant rootstocks can overcome losses due to Fusarium wilt. In fact, cucumber yields doubled when they were compared with ungrafted plants, making this strategy economically viable for growers.
Cucumber growers are keen to trial grafted plants after presentations at recent meetings of 30 attendees at Gatton in Queensland and another at Woolgoolga in NSW with over 50 growers.
Fusarium wilt severity is strongly linked to the use of urea as fertiliser where nitrogen quickly coverts to ammonium ions greatly exacerbating disease development. Growers are being advised to avoid using fertiliser products containing urea to minimise disease when ungrafted plants are grown.
This story aligns with the following DPI Outcomes:
- Economic growth through innovation that improves resilience and boosts productivity
- Productive partnerships with business, industry, research institutions and the community to accelerate opportunities and maximise benefits
Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) is a remote sensing technology that can directly measure the three-dimensional structure of vegetation and is rapidly progressing the concept of precision forestry.
DPI Biometrician Amrit Kathuria has written a software algorithm that uses airborne Lidar point cloud data to automatically locate and estimate the number of individual trees within a Pinus radiata plantation. Validation of this methodology provided a tree count accuracy of 97% which is a significant improvement of existing stem density estimations. This algorithm is now being coded to improve computational efficiency and facilitate operational deployment.
This work forms part of a Forest & Wood Products Australia funded research project being managed by the NSW Lands Forest Science team aimed at the integration of cost-effective, high spatial resolution, remotely sensed data for the Australian forestry industry. Adoption and integration of this LiDAR data processing software by the softwood plantation sector will provide accurate, wall-to-wall estimates of both stand-level and tree-level inventory attributes that are more accurate and safer to acquire than conventional approaches.
This story aligns with the following DPI Outcomes:
Economic growth through innovation that improves resilience and boosts productivity
Economic growth by ensuring sustainable use and access to natural resources
Productive partnerships with business, industry, research institutions and the community to accelerate opportunities and maximise benefits
