Project details
Status: Current
TIA is leading the temperate grasses regeneration program for the Australian Pastures Genebank, to ensure the quality and diversity of pasture species germplasm is preserved for future breeding and research challenges.
Tassie site
The Tasmanian site at Cressy is one of four regeneration sites around Australia, with others located in Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.
Pasture regeneration program
TIA's role in the regeneration program includes managing biosecurity requirements for the movement of germplasm, growing crops for seed production, and plant characterisation of specific traits.
The pasture regeneration program is a large-scale operation. There are more than 200 unique accessions, with an average of 100 plants spread over 10 hectares at the Cressy Research Station, in Northern Tasmania.
Australian Pastures Genebank
From these crops, the team aim to produce around 3 million seeds, to deposit into the Australian Pastures Genebank (APG). The samples at the APG are stored for long-term conservation and can also be used by plant breeders. A duplicate is also sent to the Global Seed Vault, in Svalbard Norway. Find out more about the APG
Project spotlight: Evaluation of browse shrubs for Flinders Island
Tom Youl, 2025 Nuffield Scholar
With challenging climatic conditions on Flinders Island, beef producers are exposed to significant feed shortages during periods of extended moisture deficit and drought. These issues are compounded due to the prohibitive expense and availability of shipping fodder to the island.
Tom Youl and his wife Jo run a self-replacing Angus herd of 1100 breeders on 1100 hectares on the island's northern side.
In 2025, Tom was awarded a Nuffield Scholarship funded by the JM Roberts Trust and the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture to investigate alternatives to traditional forms of fodder conservation on Flinders Island.
As part of his scholarship, Tom travelled to the Monarto research facility in South Australia with TIA research fellow Rowan Smith and Australian Pasture Genebank curator Alan Humphries to measure the persistence and edible biomass of the browse shrubs that were growing in the dryland nursery.
Tom is exploring browse shrub varieties that could be used to store living fodder in less productive parts of the farm (e.g. in shelter belts), as well as those that offer different nutrient, energy and palatability characteristics.
The team at TIA is helping Tom source and propagate different browse shrub species to trial on Flinders Island. The first trial plants were planted in winter 2026 and we look forward to following the progress as Tom continues to trial browse shrubs on his property.
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