The Institute for International Development Limited

Description

IID has continued to coordinate and administer this company on behalf of its shareholders. The year has been a sad one for the shareholders with the untimely death of Professor Nicholas Yensen, the breeder of the company's halophyte range of plants. The international rights to these plants have now been assigned to NyPa Australia Limited in return for an issue of shares to the US shareholders and the estate of Professor Yensen. A program of consolidation of the company's activities in Australia, Spain, Dubai and the US is to occur in 2008. The company has managed to keep a fairly extensive research program going during the dislocation associated with the illness and death of professor Yensen by means of joint ventures with other institutions including: La Trobe University through an Australian Research Council which is funding research into the productive and environmental benefits of the use of the NyPa Forage in salt effected lands. This program is being managed by Mark Sargeant, a long time employee of NyPa Australia, and being assisted by Dr Peter Sale and Dr C Tang of La Trobe. Mr Sargeant is now completing his PhD having passed through the IID mentor program in 1997 into the employment of NyPa Australia Limited. Western Australian Department of Agriculture's Australian Rural Towns Program and the University of Western Australia who have been evaluating the Company's NyPa Turf against other salt tolerant turfs for use as an amenity plant that can be watered using the rising saline ground water that is increasingly appearing in many rural towns in inland Australia as a result of poor irrigation practice. This is a good example of turning a problem, rising saline ground water and costly fresh irrigation water, into and asset, a source of water for parks etc. The South Australian Vine Improvement (SAVI) program SAVI is evaluating a range of salt and phylloxera tolerant grapevine rootstocks to find the rootstock that produces the best quality wine in conditions where the irrigation water is becoming salty. The trials have been underway for 3 years with another two years to run. Murdoch University Veterinary School and the Challenger TAFE Aquaculture unit are developing a land based aquaculture system for farmers in Western Australia who have suitable saline groundwater. The NyPa Forage has been evaluated against wetland reeds as a system to strip nutrients from the saline effluent before discharging this back into the environment. The NyPa Forage has shown itself to be superior to all others evaluated and the remaining part of the trial is to evaluate the financial benefits from feeding the fodder to livestock. International Biosaline Centre (ICBA) in Dubai, this institution has continued its evaluation of a range of halophytes for livestock production from saline groundwater, this has included both the wild seeded variety of Distichlis spicata and the NyPa Forage (Yensen 4a), the results continue to be very impressive with annual yield of ash free dry matter approaching 20 tonnes per annum in three harvests. (See www.biosaline.org follow the links via the publications tab to the 2006 annual report page 85 for the NyPa project and its results. The technical highlights of the company in 2007 have been: Demonstration that the NyPa Forage improves drainage in wet saline discharge zones, improves soil organic matter down to about 30 cms, Success of the NyPa Forage under irrigation with saline aquaculture effluent, Demonstration that salt priming improves the 'strike' of the NyPa forage at planting time.