A new sweetener in push for GM crops

Mike Jones and Sean Hird inspect GM wheat. They are developing wheat and sugar cane plants that can help to combat climate change.

Perth scientists are bidding to create genetically modified (GM) crops they claim will help to meet the challenge of climate change by making plants more resistant to drought.

The Murdoch University-based team has already created wheat that resists attack by a tiny worm that destroys root systems.

Now, with a $386,000 grant from the Federal Government's Climate Ready fund, sugar cane is next.

The worms, called plant parasitic nematodes, cause $167 billion of damage to crops worldwide, and can reduce sugar cane yields by up to 20 per cent.

Mike Jones, chief scientific officer with NemGenix, the company formed in 2008 to develop the technology, said the GM plants contained genes taken from the worms themselves, which interfered with the worms' metabolism and prevented them from thriving on the plants' roots.

The company is aiming to develop the GM sugar cane variety within a year, and bring it to market in four to five years.

Prof Jones said the new variety could boost sugar yields by 15 per cent in regions hit by water shortages and by 10 per cent in well-irrigated areas.

"The modified sugar cane would also take up nutrients more effectively, therefore needing less fertiliser, he said.

Prof Jones said improving yields could save farmers from having to expand into marginal lands, which often contained high levels of biodiversity.

Improved sugar cane yields could benefit both the food and distilling industries and provide material for making bioethanol fuel, he said.

Prof Jones denied that the plants would pose a danger to the environment or to human health, and said the threat to biodiversity was less than that from conventional crops introduced to Australia.

NemGenix chief executive Sean Hird said he welcomed the WA Government's decision to overturn the ban on GM crops, and said he welcomed an "informed, open-minded debate" over the technology.

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