Trevor James is a senior scientist with AgResearch and has been involved in researching weed management for more than 46 years. His work has covered weeds in pastoral, arable, horticultural and environmental situations.

Specific research areas include Herbicide resistance, soil weed seed bank and seed ecology, herbicide residues and persistence, border biosecurity and new incursions.

Trevor is a keen photographer of plants and with colleagues has published books on identification of weeds and their seeds.

At LandWISE 21 Conference, Trevor will report on progress being made in the MBIE funded project “Managing Herbicide Resistance”.  The goal is improved weed control and vegetation management to minimise future herbicide resistance.

Herbicide resistance occurs due to genetic mutation – in this case, when mutations help the plant to survive an application of herbicide to which they were once susceptible. “Target Site” resistance is related to a single gene, which alters the biding site so the herbicide no longer works. “Non-target site” resistance involves many genes, and alters the path to the binding site so the herbicide doesn’t reach it, metabolises (destroys) the herbicide or increases the number of binding sites.

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