This is a final research report from Hort Innovation’s historical archives. Please note that as these reports may date back as far as the 1990s, the content and recommendations within them may be superseded by more recent research.

What was it all about?

The Horticulture Industry in Australia had 23 active plant breeding programs at the time, as well as an ongoing involvement in evaluation of new varieties imported from overseas breeders. These breeding and evaluation programs were funded by growers and the Commonwealth Government through Hort Innovation (which was then Horticulture Australia Limited). Each breeding program aimed to develop new plant varieties which would deliver on consumer or grower requirements (e.g. better tasting fruit, disease resistant varieties), while evaluation programs assessed the suitability of overseas developed varieties or local selections for use in Australia.

Every new variety that was developed required commercialisation in order to make the new variety available to growers (from licensing of a seed company or nursery through to the development of an integrated production and supply system with marketing, trade mark branding and promotion). At least seven of the the then Horticulture Australia Limited supported breeding programs were likely to commence release and commercialisation of new varieties within the next year, with several other breeding programs expected to commence release of new varieties over the next few years.

All Horticultural industries would benefit from a comprehensive understanding of the commercialisation options available to them, including the rationale(s) for choosing any given commercialisation path, and the benefits and hazards of each commercialisation model. This project filled a significant knowledge gap for all the Australian Horticulture industries, and promoted the selection of the best practice commercialisation models for Australian Horticulture. The Commercialisation Casebook developed through this project supported the analysis of commercialisation options and the selection of the most suitable commercialisation model for each new variety release.