Research on creating more resilient, productive and environmentally friendly crops has been set back years after Monday's severe hail storm ripped through the CSIRO Canberra campus | nickbonyhady
Dr Melanie Figueroa, a group leader in agriculture and food involved in the project, said the CSIRO was working with organisations in Africa and North America and "some of the damage that has happened here is going to have an impact on sending material to these collaborators".
The next generation of Australian grain experts, PhD students completing experiments on tight timeframes, would also be affected.Dr Lagudah said while the CSIRO had reserve seeds for its crops, the timing of the storm meant a full growth cycle for many plants had been lost, forcing researchers to start over on projects that had been in progress for several years in some cases. He said some projects could be saved if the plants were mature enough while many others would lose about a year of research time. CSIRO chief operating officer Judi Zielke said when a similar hail storm hit the CSIRO in 2006, it had taken about 2500 panes of glass to repair the damage. Her team estimated about twice as much glass would be required to fix the damage from Monday's storm. Greenhouses at the neighbouring Australian National University campus also suffered "significant" damage in the storm, a university spokeswoman said. The ANU, which was forced to close due to hazardous bushfire smoke earlier in the month, shut its doors again due to the hail. The spokeswoman said the campus would reopen on Wednesday.
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