BIOTECHNOLOGY FOR DISEASE SCREENING AND QUARANTINE IN AUSTRALIA

BIOTECHNOLOGY has been a successful tool for increasing security of germplasm exchange within Australia and between overseas country partners. This paper reviews some techniques used in disease detection, and their application to disease screening at BSES, that would not be possible without biotechnology. The paper aims to present these techniques to the sugar industry and discuss how the adoption of biotechnology assists with disease detection in the BSES/CSIRO plant breeding program. All plants are screened for RSD infection during quarantine to prevent the spread of this important disease. Molecular diagnostic testing for Fiji disease virus is routinely undertaken on clones from NSW and southern Queensland to ensure that Fiji leaf gall disease is not carried into northern Queensland. Clones imported from overseas are tested for sugarcane mosaic virus, leaf scald, sugarcane streak virus, maize streak virus, and grassy shoot and white leaf phytoplasmas using sensitive molecular diagnostic tests. In addition to screening germplasm in quarantine, molecular assays have been used to test specimens collected on surveys through Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Torres Strait islands, to identify diseases that could threaten the Australian sugar industry from these regions. The use of diagnostic testing, together with traditional visual inspections, is expected to reduce the quarantine impediment on the BSES/CSIRO joint plant breeding program, by reducing the quarantine period for clones moving between pest quarantine areas in Queensland.