Australia
October 8, 2018

Just when we think we know who the Prime Minister is in Australia you blink your eyes and we have a new one! At the time of writing, Scott Morrison is Prime Minister but this could change by the time you receive this.

Just when we thought we understood the mechanism of trifluralin resistance we blink and find another. Earlier in the year, we reported on research by AHRI PhD student Jinyi Chen confirming that a target site mutation that infers resistance to trifluralin. This research is funded by GRDC, and PhD student Jinyi Chen is financially supported by UWA and China Scholarship Council.

Now Jinyi has confirmed that metabolic resistance to trifluralin is also possible. She studied three trifluralin resistant populations of ryegrass and found that one population had both target site and metabolic resistance mechanisms, sometimes in the same individual plant. The other two populations had metabolic resistance only.

The resistant populations could take up and translocate trifluralin just like susceptible ryegrass, but once the trifluralin was in the plant it was metabolised quickly.

The exact metabolic resistance mechanism is still to be confirmed, and P450 enzymes are the prime suspect, this will be the subject of ongoing research.
There is never a single Australian Prime Minister for a full term these days and there is never a single resistance mechanism.

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Website: http://www.ahri.uwa.edu.au/

Published: October 8, 2018