Friday, March 29, 2024

Awards for boosting commercial science success

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Plant & Food Research chief executive David Hughes has claimed a top honour in delivering quality science in a commercial form in this year’s KiwiNet awards.
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Plant & Food Research chief executive David Hughes was recognised for his efforts in boosting the research institute’s commercial successes.

Plant & Food Research chief executive David Hughes has claimed a top honour in delivering quality science in a commercial form in this year’s KiwiNet awards.

Taking out the inaugural commercial icon award, Hughes has been recognised for the impact he has had upon leveraging Plant & Food Research’s scientific focus for research commercialisation.

Since 2009, when Hughes started as group general manager of the institute’s commercial division, its revenue stream has grown from $13 million a year from kiwifruit and apples to $52m in 2020. That income comprises an array of crops, technologies and business models. 

This is now a third of Plant & Food Research’s revenue.

KiwiNet represents 19 research organisations working in collaboration to commercialise their research projects and comprises institute heavyweights, including AgResearch, Lincoln University, Massey University, Callaghan Innovation and NIWA.

KiwiNet chief executive Dr James Hutchinson says commercialisation had a critical game-changing role to play in this country’s growth and commended Hughes for his leadership in advancing commercialisation and fostering a social licence to commercialise research.

Hughes’ recognition was not the only award Plant & Food Research collected.

Darja Pavlovic-Nelson was awarded the commercialisation professional award for her work raising capital to commercialise the institute’s Scentian Bio project.

The technology utilises insect’s scent receptors for monitoring and providing rapid detection of volatile organic compounds.

The institute also collected the commercial impact award recognising research that delivered the potential for significant economic return to New Zealand.

The award went to the developers of Aureo Gold, a bio-control product developed in conjunction with Zespri and UP for better management of the vine-killing disease Psa.

With its low residue content and biologic compounds Aureo Gold is bee-friendly and can be used by both commercial and organic growers.

In casting around for biological answers to Psa, Plant & Food Research plant pathologists sifted through numerous fungi and bacteria from its extensive library of beneficial microorganisms.

Ultimately, the team at Ruakura found an Otago apricot fungi that occurred naturally on the plant and did not cause any harm and was the best candidate for dealing with Psa.

The yeast-like fungi was found to populate the leaf surface of kiwifruit and effectively out compete the Psa bacteria, disrupting the Psa cells on the leaf and affect its ability to colonise the plant’s stomata.

The commercialisation of the treatment is not the first win for the Plant & Food Research team, whose portfolio of bio-controls include Botry-Zen for controlling botrytis in grapes, and BlossomBless™ for fire-blight control in apples, and are among the first treatments of their type developed for horticulture in NZ.

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