Park milestone to be celebrated

Crop seeds from around the world, the latest science and technological innovations including unmanned aerial vehicles and a fully automated state-of-the-art glasshouse, and Australia’s first fire-fighting simulation table.

These are just some of the things visitors can expect to see when Grains Innovation Park in Horsham hosts its 50th anniversary tomorrow.

Despite what the name suggests, there is much more to Grains Innovation Park than world-class grains research.

As well as being home to almost 100 highly skilled agricultural research and innovation staff, the site houses Horsham Incident Control Centre, which becomes a hive of activity during fire season and times of emergency.

At tomorrow’s open day, visitors will have the chance to tour the Incident Control Centre, to see some of the newest fire-fighting tankers and be among the first to witness Australia’s first fire-fighting simulation table.

Other attractions will include a ‘grains research and innovation tour’ which will take in a grains chemistry lab where baking processes and other experiments test the quality of new and yet-to-be released grain varieties.

This tour will also include a visit to the fully automated Plant Phenomics Victoria centre, where high-throughput phenotyping of crop plants occurs to allow fast delivery of new crop varieties to farmers.

People will also get the chance to have a look inside the Australian Grains Genebank, which contains more than 300-million seeds from more than 150 countries.

Some of Agriculture Victoria’s research field trial machinery will also be on display.

Another drawcard will be a hand-sown ‘heritage crops’ demonstration, featuring crop varieties grown in the region during the past half-century. Included in the demonstration are 29 wheat varieties, including old lines such as Federation and Olympic, through to newer releases such as Mace and Scepter.

The open day will also include a range of static displays.

Organisers have invited farmers, industry representatives and the general community to see firsthand the world-class research happening in the Wimmera, between 11am and 6pm. Guided tours will be available until 5pm.

People seeking more information can visit website www.agriculture.vic.gov.au/horsham or call 4344 3111.