In this edition the Education and Training Program Leader - Kirsty Bayliss - is pleased to announce that Mr Paul Royce has submitted his PhD thesis for examination. Paul was the CRCNPB's first PhD student, and his submission has been a long awaited event! Congratulations Paul. You can read more about his PhD here [1]. Congratulations is also due to Nichole Hammond and Alistair McTaggart who have both had their PhD theses accepted. It is very pleasing to hear the examiner reports on the student projects which are all coming back very favourable.

In March, the pilot Grain Storage and Biosecurity course was conducted by Charles Sturt University. This new course has been developed in conjunction with key stakeholders from Viterra, GrainCorp and CBH group and with input from Plant Health Australia and Murdoch University Stored Grains Associate Professor YongLin Ren. The course builds on the Grain Quality Protection Industry Course that was first offered in 1990 but has been substantially revised to incorporate industry best practice regarding grain biosecurity, stored grain pests and fumigation requirements.

The course has both an on-line study component, and a face to face workshop at CSU, Wagga Wagga. The workshop was delivered by Dr Paul Weston (CSU), Assoc Prof John Kent (CSU), Dr Jo Holloway (I&I NSW), Dr Jo Slattery (Plant Health Australia), and Gerard McMullen (GP McMullen Consulting).

The Program covered:

• marketing and grain quality management 
• biosecurity risk management
• integrated pest management in grain storages 
• grain pest insect identification 
• grain inspection, detection, monitoring and sampling 
• OHS risk management 
• fumigation of grain storages, and 
• use of pesticides, label interpretation, legal obligations and calibration of application equipment.

At the conclusion of the workshop the following comments were received from the students:
‘The course was very applicable and focused exactly on our needs and problems.’
‘The material covered, the discussions and even the formal assessments were very relevant and useful.’
‘There will be direct, practical benefits for the workplace.’
‘The course and material is very relevant to the AQIS staff inspecting and certifying grain prior to export.’

The opinion of everyone involved is that the course is highly relevant to the grains industry, especially in this time of deregulation. The CRCNPB looks forward to a successful future for the course and encourages anyone interested to enrol in next year’s course which will be held in March 2012.
 

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