This project will investigate options to overcome the cause of deficient fumigation, sustain the life of phosphine and enable the effective application of new fumigants. It will develop an integrated aeration-fumigation technology for faster, more reliable and sustainable grain disinfestation.

Overall it will develop improvements to the fumigation capability of grain storage facilities, fumigation technologies and practices to better control pest insects and keep Australia's grain export industry free from insect strains resistant to phosphine.

What is the biosecurity problem?

Australia's post-harvest grain industry faces serious biosecurity threats from endemic and exotic pests. Increasing applications of phosphine to grain stored in silos that cannot maintain effective doses due to leaks or cannot distribute fumigants throughout the store effectively has caused problems with insect pests building up resistance. Improved and reliable fumigation systems are now required to protect the harvest and minimise the risk of resistance.

The main outputs of this project are to:

• develop a prototype integrated aeration-fumigation system for typical farm stores that implements grain heating, cooling and fumigation schedules identified as providing a sustainable no-repeat phosphine fumigation strategy.
• develop an automatic control method for fan-forced fumigation systems that implements phosphine fumigation schedules for all sizes of grain stores.
• publish peer reviewed scientific journal articles describing the results of various outputs of the work as follows; a) a model of fumigant sorption by grain, b) efficacy of 'interrupted' phosphine exposures and c) a model of fumigation performance.
• conduct an analysis of the performance of developed innovative fumigation strategies applied to common industrial storage scenarios (bulk handlerand grower).
• provide technical reports describing collaborative industrial scale trials with a BHC and a grower.

Who will be the end-users of this research?

Results, recommendations and technology transfer will be provided to the Australian grain industry and in particular the bulk handling companies, on-farm grain storers, grain traders, grain fumigation researchers, grain fumigation equipment suppliers, and grain fumigation equipment designers.  This will be via the National Working Party on Grain Protection (NWPGP) and other industry publications. CRC annual workshop with grain industry partners, and collaborative trials with bulk grain storage operators and growers.