27 August 2001 Doctoral scholarships a boost for horticultural industry

Lincoln University, Crop and Food Research Institute Ltd and several Canterbury businesses have got behind New Zealand's horticultural industry by offering eight scholarships for doctoral degree study in advanced areas of horticultural research.

The scholarships, relating to areas of either plant pathology, molecular biology or biotechnology, are for PhDs, and they carry an annual stipend of between $16-$18,000 per year with university fees and research costs covered.

Specific research projects, of which there is a choice of 13 over the eight scholarships, involve walnuts, onions, olives, asparagus and potatoes. In addition there is a project on in vivo transformation systems in a number of crop species, and another on the genes involved in the accumulation of bioactive sulphur in brassica and allium species.

Some of the scholarship projects are based at Crop and Food Research Ltd others at Lincoln University.

"All of the crops the scholars will be working on are economically important ones," says Lincoln University Professor in Horticulture David McNeil.

"And all of the projects address highly relevant problems or significant advances connected with that importance.

"For example there's one on olive leaf spot aimed at developing a sustainable disease-management programme, another aimed at improving the nutritive value and colour of potatoes through carotenoid manipulation and another investigating the potential for the biological control of walnut tree blight using bacteriophages (a particular sort of virus that can knock out bacterial cells).

"These scholarships represent a golden opportunity to enter the research side of a major New Zealand industry with the brightest of career futures," says Professor McNeil.

"It is no exaggeration to say that horticulturists  - through their production of fruit and vegetables - hold the health of the nation in their hands."

Applications for the scholarships are open now and the contact is Professor David McNeil, Plant Science Group, PO Box 84, Lincoln University, phone (03) 3252811 ext 8113, email mcneil@lincoln.ac.nz, fax (03) 3253843.

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand.