Farmers shattered by damaged CSIRO research glasshouses

Farmers are devastated at the loss of decades of research after 65 CSIRO glasshouses were shattered in Canberra’s hailstorm.

CSIRO crop and yeast scientist Thomas Vanhercke and researcher Sapna Pillai survey the hailstorm damage. Picture: Sean Davey

Farmers have been left devastated by the loss of decades of research that will affect a generation of drought-resistant crops after 65 CSIRO glasshouses were shattered in Monday’s Canberra hailstorm.

The setback in the CSIRO’s research has particularly hurt farmers who rely on their work to continue growing crops through one of the worst droughts on record.

CSIRO director of agricultural food Michiel Van Lookeren Campagne said he was left helpless watching decades of work destroyed. He said farmers would suffer delays from the damage and a “generation of crops” on which his team was working was now gone.

“We can’t continue most of the work in the greenhouses. We have experiments with cotton, with barley, with wheat, with other crops … it will have an impact on the delivery to those farmers.

“We’ve had many of these crops for decades. It will set back a generation of crops.”

Different crops were set up in varying-temperatured glasshouses to see how they would survive in drought-like conditions.

Those experiments are under serious threat because the cooling systems have been so severely damaged.

National Farmers Federation spokeswoman Loreta Wallace said the CSIRO’s drought work was integral to the farming industry’s survival and it had to get back on track.

Damaged CSIRO glasshouses. Picture: AFP

“To say the damage done at Black Mountain is really disappointing is not strong enough. Much of farming progress hinges on research like this, and most of it has been led by the CSIRO,” she said.

“CSIRO drought-resistance studies to help our farmers grow more … have been so important to future production. We hope there has been some risk management here and that the government will provide all the assistance possible to get these trials going again.”

Victorian Farmers Federation president David Jochinke said any setback to research could see a “year’s work” in the farming industry vanish. “The work at Black Mountain has been leading in new gene technology … the work of CSIRO is fundamental to the future of agriculture.”

Nearly 15 older greenhouses survived because they were built with thicker glass but more than 60 glasshouses full of barley, wheat and cotton have been ruined. CSIRO said it could be weeks before they know the financial cost of the damage.

Scientist Thomas Vanhercke’s crops were spared but he said his colleagues were devastated. “ I t’s very sad for the people who have done all this work,” he said.