Australian researchers have launched a world first database to help scientists get more targeted information on breeding new crop varieties.

The database catalogues information on the location of vital proteins in barley, wheat, rice and maize.

Plant proteins are important in breeding new crop varieties because they dictate whether the crops can cope with things like drought, rising temperatures and saline soils.

Researchers based at the University of Western Australia (UWA) have reviewed information from thousands of studies from around the world to create the public database called CropPAL, which stands for 'crop proteins with annotated locations'. Listen Duration: 5 minutes 15 seconds 5 m Listen Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Dr Cornelia Hooper says a new database will collate information on proteins in major crops ( Bridget Fitzgerald ) Download 2.4 MB

Lead researcher Dr Cornelia Hooper is a part of the Australian Research Council Centre of Energy in Plan Energy Biology at UWA.

She said the resource would improve research into traits like drought resistance and salt tolerance.

"It's not a straight forward thing to breed a drought tolerant plant; there's a lot of trial and error," Dr Hooper said.

"With actually knowing which proteins you want to improve, increase or decrease or change you might be able to do a more targeted approach and you might be able to guide the breeding."

Dr Hooper said the database gave scientists the opportunity to learn more about how these proteins work.

She said scientists generally researched a particular area and this database would offer "an extra layer of interpretation".

"The protein location is a really important piece of information," Dr Hooper said.

"Because proteins within the cells work together in units.

"So it's really important to know which units do which functions so that you can link them to other parts of the cell."

Dr Hooper said CropPAL currently collated data on the proteins within the "four most important" crops, including barley, wheat, rice and maize plants.

But she said researchers aimed to add information on a further seven crop varieties by the end of 2017.