DNA fingerprinting the ’food of gods’

The tropical root vegetable taro, known as the 'food of the gods' in the Pacific, is under threat from rising sea levels but wild Australian plants being cultivated by The University of Queensland may help boost food security in the region. UQ's Dr Millicent Smith , a plant physiologist from the School of Agriculture and Food Sciences and Professor Ian Godwin from the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) are working with the Pacific's chief scientific organisation, The Pacific Community (SPC), to find wild salt-tolerant taro varieties in Australia. "The genetics of wild relatives of taro may hold the key to developing salt tolerant varieties and help protect taro's unique nutritional and cultural place in the lives of Pacific Islanders," Dr Smith said. "Taro is one of the oldest cultivated plants in the world, but tidal inundations caused by rising sea levels, increased cyclone activity and contaminated groundwater can cause toxic levels of salt to affect taro production." Taro is a starchy vegetable with a sweet, mild nutty flavour, and is a staple in the diet of Pacific Islanders. Dr Smith is part of a team looking at the physiological mechanisms and underlying genetics of native and naturalised Australian wild taro that grow in tidal habitats in and around southeast Queensland. "We are developing a high-throughput, low cost system at UQ to screen taro plants for salinity tolerance," Dr Smith said. "We are using specialised pots to expose taro plants to elevated salinity through simulated tidal inundation." Professor Godwin said the aim was to get a DNA 'fingerprint' of each plant's unique genetic sequence.