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Dried Fruits Australia - Profile - Rob Walker

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 09:58:22

Scientists are well-known for their patience – and fortunately for viticulture, CSIRO stalwart Rob Walker has patience in spades.

Rob served more than three decades at CSIRO Merbein, but says despite the passage of time, it’s gratifying the full value is still emerging now from some of the laboratory’s early research.

As a scientist still in his 20s, Rob jumped at the opportunity in 1976 to work at the CSIRO’s Merbein laboratory.  He was fresh from a PhD in horticulture in Tasmania, followed by an 18-month stint as a post-doctoral fellow at the CSIRO Division of Horticultural Research in Adelaide, then a 12 month post-doctoral fellowship at Cambridge University, but was excited about the prospect of “making a difference” in his work at the Merbein laboratory.

Horticulture at the time was grappling with vastly different challenges – flood irrigation was still the standard irrigation technology, new vine rootstock development was only beginning, and research on managing salinity was still in its infancy.

And it was salinity research that took up much of Rob’s time in his early days at Merbein, initially in projects with the citrus industry, and later researching salt tolerance of various grapevine rootstocks.

“We tried to understand what makes some rootstocks tolerant of salinity and others susceptible,” Rob said.

“That’s not quick or easy work, and some research that started in the mid 1980s continues in some form even through to today. 

“But we are getting closer and closer to understanding the mechanism involved and that’s not something that would have been possible without CSIRO’s long-term commitment.”

Rob said the work began initially because of the rising environmental and productive toll from salinity, but its full value had come into focus during the recent drought.

“It’s really incredible what the horticultural industry has managed to withstand in the last 10 years,” he said.

 “We have had these amazing extremes in weather, including the worst drought in living memory, but it’s incredible that the horticultural industry has been able to get through.

 “That was made possible by a lot of the research and development we did around the use of water and management of salinity and the widespread adoption of systems like drip irrigation. 

“When the drought did come, many people were able to use those irrigation systems very efficiently, and even with the minimal amount of water they had available, they were able to survive.

“So in the end it had a very clear financial outcome for growers, and not just an environmental outcome.

“It’s a living example of where technology is developed and can be put to good practical effect – it was a good environmental initiative, but it became a survival tool during that time.”

Rob’s interest in horticulture was extended with his appointment as senior officer at Merbein in 1985 (a role which he held until the site ceased to be a Research Program  in 2009), Rob has been a constant on horticultural research bodies, and specifically dried fruit.  He served on the Dried Fruits Research and Development Council from its inception in the 1990s and then transferred to the successor-body, the Dried Grape Industry Advisory Committee of Horticulture Australia Limited.   Rob also chaired the steering committee for the dried grape breeding program, which counts among its recent successes, the commercial release of the rain-tolerant varieties, Sunmuscat, Sunglo sultana and Black Gem currant.  Rob was also a strong advocate for a co-operative approach between research bodies, helping to broker the unique Riverlink co-operative partnership between the three State agencies and CSIRO. He was also a foundation Program Manager in the Riverlink initiative.

He was transferred to Adelaide after Merbein’s closure in 2011, but retains his passion for horticultural research in his new role as Program Leader (Horticultural Crops) for the CSIRO Division of Plant Industry at Adelaide.

Rob said CSIRO projects continued to aim at delivering outcomes other than their specific research target.

“Our breeding program to try to identify rootstocks that are salt-tolerant also tries to identify other important traits for rootstocks,” he explained.

“So for example, one of the hybrids has shown to be very promising in salt tolerance over many years. 

“But it is now also showing tolerance of phylloxera, and also tolerance of nematodes.

“That particular rootstock is now being tested in broader field trials in regions that have issues with salinity, to see how it performs there.”

Rob said despite the closure of the Merbein laboratory, he was continuing to focus on ensuring CSIRO delivered well-targeted research for horticulture.

 “It’s a global marketplace in which we operate and compete, and remaining competitive in economic terms is an absolute must,” he said.

“We have to be innovative and always looking for something new that is going to improve the yield or quality of what we grow without increasing cost of production.

“I’m really pleased CSIRO has retained a research farm in Mildura, and that will continue to be an important resource for the research and development work that is done in the Adelaide laboratory.”

Rob said it was also pleasing that, in the case of the dried fruit industry, vast amounts of research progeny developed at Merbein would continue to be assessed.

“We have worked hard to ensure the outputs of our breeding programs will continue to be evaluated through to an end point,” he said.

“Breeding programs produce thousands of hybrids, but when the Merbein laboratory closed the evaluation of those had not been completed.

“We have gone some way since to narrowing that number, but the process hadn’t been finished.

“However I’m pleased that in the case of dried grapes the industry is taking up the process and evaluating that pipeline progeny.

“We are trying to do the same with the table grape and citrus programs, and hopefully it can identify some new varieties for each of those crops.

“It’s intellectual property that could have been lost when the lab was closed, but fortunately it hasn’t been.

“For me, the decision to close Merbein did come as a shock and with some disappointment.

“But I’ve moved on and have dealt with it, and my belief remains that well-targeted research is still critical to the future of horticultural industries.

“I think it will continue to achieve the outcomes the industries need – we just need to build new structures to accommodate the co-operative approach we have always been known for, and that has already brought our industries so far,”  he said.