Minister for Agriculture Michael O'Brien and the Commonwealth Office of the Gene Technology Regulator approved the increase in trials this year.

The trials will be undertaken by the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics, which is preparing for its second harvest of GM wheat and barley lines at its Glenthorne site in Adelaide's south.

ACPFG research fellow Dr Andrew Jacobs said multinational companies were looking with interest on research undertaken in SA on GM crops, despite any commercial release of GM wheat or barley being at least eight years away.

Trials on GM canola and Indian mustard are being conducted by Bayer CropScience at Naracoorte and Lucindale. In a statement to Stock Journal, Bayer said it had been conducting small-scale research and innovation field trials to develop a new high performance hybrid canola. The trials have been run since 2006.

"We believe plant biotechnolgoy will play a vital role in improving Australian agricultural productivity and a positive impact on the local economy," the company said.

Last year was ACPFG's first GM trial plot taken through to harvest. A crop was planted the year before but because of late licence approvals, it was sown too late and Dr Jacobs said, destroyed before it set seed so that researchers did not have to conduct post-harvest monitoring. But this issue was not expected to arise again because the ACPFG was this year awarded a five-year trials licence.

Within that licence, the ACPFG is allowed to sow GM crops at three specific locations: Glenthorne, in SA's Lower North and at Corrigin, Western Australia. Glenthorne is the only location that has had trials established so far, with plans to sow in the Lower North and Corrigin next season.

"The Corrigin site has salinity problems so it's going to be very useful for us," Dr Jacobs said.

The ACPFG will have access to a further two sites next year, as part of the WA government's plans to establish trials in Merredin and Katanning.

"The WA government is going to fence off a 5ha area and have dedicated equipment for GM trials with laboratories on site," Dr Jacobs said. "The government is hoping organisations like ACPFG and CSIRO and other universities will use those facilities on a fee for service basis.

"For ACPFG, it will extend the range in which we can plant and give us access to other environments."

* Full report in Stock Journal, December 2 issue.