2007 Annual Report - Central Queensland University

2007 Centre for Plant & Water Science Annual ReportSection A GOALS, OBJECTIVES, TARGETS AND PROGRESSTOWARDS ACHIEVEMENTThe change of name from Plant Sciences Group to Centre for Plant & Water Science, from thestart of 2007, was well received both externally and internally.The change was physically mirrored in the removal of the demountable Building 205, known asthe ‘Belmont Laboratory’: which had served as the earlier headquarters for the Plant SciencesGroup. Staff formerly in Building 205 moved to the refurbished Building 7 in late 2003 withthe Belmont Laboratory deteriorating into a storage facility beset by airconditioner fire androdent problems. Although a replacement shed was given priority in CQU infrastructure funds,the collapse of University resources saw this item fall off the agenda in 2009 and consequentlythe Centre is budgeting for its replacement. Although promised a replacement paid for by CQUInfrastructure Funds, this has yet to be actioned by Facilities Management.We set ourselves some challenging goals in our 2007-2011 Strategic Plan(http://cpws.cqu.edu.au/FCWViewer/view.do?page=526).Our publications (14 refereed journal articles), graduations (two) and income ($1.1m) for 2007did not match up to the goals we set ourselves, but our overall activity levels seems to havemoved into overdrive. Our greatest Centre achievements in 2007 have been our industrylinkages and our training; linkages were forged with both government (e.g. QDNR&W,QDPI&F, NT Govt.) and private (e.g. Midell Development; Valley Syndicate Pineapple;Sanitarium) institutions for the development of some successful and other non-successful grantapplications. The training was the successful teaching, and later rescuing, of the university’sinvolvement in ICEWARM, the International Centre of Excellence in Water ResourcesManagement for which members of the CPWS prepared teaching materials based upon one ofour research foci - water.Our staffing remained on an even keel, farewelling Dr Grant Zhu after a long period as a veryflexible and able Research Officer who moved to the University of Melbourne, with DonnaKele’s (married in the year to Ben Kele) casual contract lapsed in line with decreased Centreresources, and Barry Hood moving to Brisbane to work with the GBG Project Management PtyLtd and subsequently with the QDNR&W.We welcomed Phul Subedi as a Research Officer working on Calypso mango quality (andwhich sparked much radio media interest) and mandarin dryness defect, Laurie Tait as theResearch Technician, Jordie Bembridge and Ross Percival as part-time Research workers in theSunrise at 1770/Midell waste water project, Vicki Barden on a native vegetation project fundedby Ergon/Powerlink and Brock McDonald, Subhash Hathurusingha and Bhima Bhattarai forproject assistance.We also welcomed Dr Din Zahid from the Bahauddin Zakariya University as a visiting SeniorResearch Officer, funded by the Pakistan Higher Education Council for one year. Dr Zahid, aforester, worked on aspects of tree growth in land-fills and in a plantation established withtreated human effluent, and collated data on seed germination and seedling growth of drierrainforest species with commercial potential. His work resulted in two submitted manuscripts.Dr Mihail Mukarev, a researcher from Bulgaria, funded by a CQU merit grant worked on NIRoutlier detection from September to November 2007. We were also fortunate to have a number1