Everybody relax – the world’s beer supplies are safe.

Scientists at the University of Queensland are looking to make sure it stays that way, with new findings set to better safeguard one of beer’s main ingredients.

UQ researcher Dr Lee Hickey has led a team which discovered a particular plant gene that provides resistance to leaf rust in some varieties of barley.

“Leaf rust is a fungal disease that could destroy almost a third of the nation's barley crop,” said Dr Hickey, a research fellow at UQ's Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, “the discovery will enable selective breeding of barley that will provide genetic protection to the disease. This will result in much lower chemical use, reduced crop losses, and a more reliable grain supply.”

The research was a collaborative effort with others from the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the University of Sydney and Uruguay's Instituto de Investigacion Agropecaria.

The gene was identified through field trials in Australia and Uruguay, a diagnostic DNA marker was then developed to trace the gene’s origins to a type of barley first cross-bred in the Netherlands in 1928. Barley strains which contain the RPH20 Gene are resistant to both leaf rust and powdery mildew, another devastating ailment.

Dr Hickey has declined to patent the DNA marker, preferring the information to be freely available to other researchers.

The paper reporting the team’s finding is available here.