Author: Sarah

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & PLANT BREEDERS RIGHTS (PBR)

We sat down with Andrew Hallinan, Nurseryman (ex-sports turf manager) and Senior Examiner Plant Breeders Rights for IP Australia, for an overview on intellectual property (IP) and how plant breeder’s rights can help grow your business.

What is intellectual property?

“Broadly speaking intellectual property, or IP, is a type of intangible asset, or similar to, or quite often a part of, ‘good will’ as it is often called in business. It is a product of your own creativity. It could be an invention or plant variety, an artwork, literary work, branding or many other things. For the turf industry, plant varieties and branding are probably the most relevant forms of IP.

What kinds of IP are there?

“IP can be broken up a few ways. Firstly, rights and non-rights. An example of intellectual property that is not a right is a trade secret, like a secret recipe. The only protection you have with a trade secret is keeping it secret. Once it’s not a secret, you lose control and ownership.

Alternatively, IP rights such as copyright, patents, trademarks, designs, and plant breeder’s rights give you legally enforceable controls to protect your idea or asset.

Intellectual property rights themselves can be used to grow your business by accessing new markets through licensing arrangements or reinforcing brand recognition, and as a result, increasing revenue streams – opening up markets that you couldn’t necessarily access by yourself. You can also sell the property rights as an asset, and sometimes they can be worth a lot of money.

“Intellectual property is an important consideration for all businesses. IP gives businesses and individuals an opportunity to get recognition for, and derive profit from, your own ideas and creations.

Why is PBR important to our industry?

Fundamentally it provides the incentive for turf breeders to invest their time and money into continuing to breed improved varieties. Improvements in turf varieties disease resistance, drought tolerance, wear tolerance and maintenance requirements among many others, would not have been possible to anywhere near the same extent if it wasn’t for the PBR system, as it allows for Breeders to recoup the costs that they have sunk into developing a new variety.

If I’m a plant breeder, what do I need to consider?

“If you are breeder, plant breeder’s rights give you the opportunity to profit from your plant breeding work. It gives you control of how a new variety is commercialised. It allows for the breeder to not only manage who grows the variety but allows you to more easily access other markets that were not necessarily open to you before, using licensing arrangements. Alternatively, you can sell your rights as an asset, just like you would sell a house or building, and make money that way – potentially allowing you to just focus on plant breeding.

If I’m not a plant breeder, what do I need to know?

“If you are not a plant breeder but are still part of the industry, it’s in your interest to know about plant breeder’s rights as well. The reason is, if you commercialise plant varieties without permission, you may be liable for both criminal and civil action, and penalties through the courts. This could lead to fines of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So, it’s well worth doing your due diligence and knowing what you can and can’t do with regard to protected plant varieties.”

What is UPOV?

The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) is the umbrella organisation that our PBR legislation adheres to. This allows for Australian breeders to protect their varieties across most of the world. It also allows the best breeders from overseas to introduce their varieties to Australia.

Australia to lead the development of the new International descriptor for couch grass varieties

The PBR process requires that we describe all new varieties and how they are different from other varieties. These are then published in the plant varieties journal and are generally done using internationally endorsed technical guidelines for different plant types to standardise how they are described. To date there has never been an internationally adopted technical guideline for any of the common turfgrass species.

This is about to change as Australia is leading the development of the new Technical Guideline for Couch Grass (Cynodon sp.).

Initially developed between local turfgrass breeders Peter McMaugh and Don Loch, and myself. We are now, with the generous help of Lawn Solutions Australia (LSA), collaborating with Dr Brian Schwartz of the University of Georgia. The goal is to produce a guideline that provides a clear and standard way to describe new varieties of couch grass leading to streamlined introductions of improved Australian and international varieties to the industry for the continued benefit of breeders, growers, turf managers and homeowners.

Initial meetings were held at LSA’s research and development facility at Jaspers Brush, NSW in May. Not only are we now able to receive input from one of the world’s leading turfgrass breeders, but also have the ability to test and further refine the guideline against extensive collections of US varieties. This is a great result for turf breeders and the industry.

The washing of turf rolls or slabs for sports turf surfaces involves the removal of the soil that is attached to the turf after harvesting. It is an important step in ensuring the success of the turf, providing several important benefits. Turf washing removes clay and dirt, helps to maintain the consistency of the existing sand profile, provides quicker root establishment, and reduces the weight of the turf for transportation.

Our first turf washer was built in 1997 when we received an order for 2000m2 of washed Tifgreen 328 on Wednesday for delivery the following Wednesday. The washer was built very basically in 4-5 days and could only wash 18-inch slabs and small rolls.

That washer provided us good service until it needed to be replaced in the early 2000’s when we built a new unit that could wash both slabs and 48-inch maxi-rolls.

The Maxi-roll washer washed a lot of both slabs and Maxi-rolls and was still operational till the replacement was completed this winter.

The New Washer

In September 2021 we received an order for 120,000m2 of washed Kikuyu, to be provided over the next two years, and to be delivered 40,000 to 50,000m2 at a time.

The last washer had a minor issue with everyone getting extremely wet while washing which wasn’t ideal. It also was not as ergonomic as it could be if you had to wash 3000m2 per day for a couple of weeks straight.

The Planning Process

Along with the new washer we needed to improve how we handled the soil which results from a big washing job. We already had a retention basin/settling pond, but the back wall needed to be strengthened to allow the excavator and trucks to work on it with the dam nearly full. This had always been done in the past with the dam empty prior to the start of our wet summer. Washing 3000m2 a day for days on end meant that we needed to be able to empty this every few days.

The Design Process

We started off thinking that we would just improve the loading process to reduce the workload on staff and help keep them dryer and a frame system to keep the washed turf as tidy as possible on the pallet. This was achieved with the design and construction of a scissor lift and stacking walls at each end which achieved the aim of less effort and drier staff.

One of the things that slows the washing process is waiting for the empty pallet to be removed from the loading end and the new pallet to be loaded. The same problem exists at the other end, with the process causing a double hold-up with every pallet.

After a lot of thought and talks with our management staff, I decided to rebuild the whole washer entirely. The only thing we kept from the last washer was the spray bars that worked extremely well.

The resulting and final design for the washer was to build it to allow the empty pallets to travel through the washer ready for re-filling at the other end.

The Construction

The construction of the new washer was started in late March with the plan of being finished by the end of May when we had an 18,000m2 TifTuf Hybrid Bermuda job to wash.

I completed the full designs with David from Runge Engineering doing all the drawings for the laser cutting. Everything was designed and built so that it could all be hot-dipped galvanised. Meaning a lot of things that would normally be welded together would be bolted so as not to exceed the dimensions of the dip tank.

The construction was done by both Twin View Turf staff and Runge Engineering to keep the project on time. As parts were completed, they were brought to our shed and assembled as a working machine to ensure it all worked. This ensured we would not be cutting and welding bits onto a galvanised machine.

Once we were happy with the finished product it was all dismantled, catalogued and sent to the galvanising plant for treatment. This took place at the end of June and took three weeks to be completed. Lucky for us, the big TifTuf job was delayed till mid-September.

While this was happening, we built the parts and frames for the workers’ shade at both ends, along with the frame that keeps all the spray from the washing section under control. While this was at the galvaniser the machine was being assembled at the washing bay beside our dam with a new Hydraulic power pack, E-stops and foot pedal for the controls.

It was mid-August before we had the project all completed and were able to do the first test wash. This went very well, and all staff seemed happy. It received a better test at the end of August when we washed 1,700m2 in one day and everyone was a lot drier and warmer than experienced in the past.

STRI LEADING THE WAY IN ELITE SPORTS SURFACES

Through its joint venture Aspire Sports Turf, STRI has put its sports turf and elite event expertise to good use to ensure FIFA standards are met at all World Cup venues in Qatar.

In 2015, the Aspire Zone Foundation in Qatar were looking to bolster their expertise in sports turf and engaged STRI Group to help. Aspire Sports Turf (AST) was then born – the joint venture between the two organisations.

In the months following introduction to the market, AST were awarded two major contracts; the maintenance of all sports facilities managed by the Ministry of Culture and Sport in Qatar, and the design, construction supervision and maintenance supervision of all pitches for the Qatar 2022 World Cup on behalf of the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (The SC).

AST’s team comprised of multidisciplinary individuals with world class experience in sports turf consultancy from New Zealand, Australia, and the UK. AST’s research capabilities were bolstered by Carlos Sartoretto, who moved from South America to join the team, and later became Research and Business Development Manager at STRI Australia.

The team at AST continued to grow as the stadium pitches and training sites went from design and research, to construction, grow-in, turf management and tournament delivery. What began as a small team of four is now over 60.

The Challenges

Climate presented a considerable challenge in preparing elite level turf surfaces. Qatar is one of the driest countries on the planet, with less than nine rainy days per year and average highs of 41 degrees Celsius.

An understanding of these conditions resulted in moving the tournament from its usual summer slot to November and December, meaning that it would be staged over a shorter window of time than usual (28 days). This, paired with the fact that there would be eight host stadiums rather than the standard ten, meant that the pitches needed to be designed to withstand significantly more play than previous World Cups.

The climate, and the fact that this is the first ever World Cup in the Middle East, also brought several unique and significant challenges to the design and delivery. To mitigate this, AST built a research facility on site to carry out meticulous testing and ensure that the demands of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy were met.

The Solution

The research facility provided vital knowledge ahead of the construction of a turf farm on the outskirts of Doha. It enabled extensive studies into optimising turf quality for the tournament, as well as identifying the most efficient and sustainable water management practices to be used in that specific climate, by replicating trials that would ordinarily have taken place at STRI’s research facilities in the UK and Australia.

The research also helped to establish the signature pitch design to be used at the Qatar World Cup, a unified design to be used across all venues to ensure maximum consistency of surface characteristics. In addition to pitch design, AST also defined the specifications for construction and liaised with the Supreme Committee and other stakeholders for approval on all aspects.

Following this, the Supreme Committee put the construction project out to tender and split the construction between various local businesses to reduce the build time. Consistency was ensured as all companies were working to the exact same design and specification, as well as the supervision and management of the construction being overseen by AST itself.

Running parallel to the early phases of the journey, AST also ran an educational programme, which became the Qatar national training programme for all turf construction and management. The research facility was a focal point for the educational programmes, aimed at upskilling contractors who had limited experience of elite sports surfaces due to lack of demand in the country previously. This training programme ensured that all contractors were trained and accredited by AST prior to any work taking place, enabling them to deliver pitches to the exact specification, and arming them with valuable transferable skills for the future.

Following completion of the research, design, construction, and maintenance phases, AST will now move into the delivery phase for the tournament itself. This will focus on implementing a team of high-end consultants to ensure elite standards are in place for such a prestigious event.

The Project in Summary

• All pitches delivered in line with the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Sustainability Strategy
• Stadiums ready in line with Supreme Committee’s timings
• Pitch designs in place which mitigate extreme climates and meet elite standards required for the World Cup
• Research facility now being used for a wide range of projects from across the world
• Aspire Sports Turf continuing to operate in Qatar, using skills gained on sports facilities managed by Ministry of Culture and Sport