Articles
Do the dollars make sense for woody ornamental cultivar development in a university setting?
Article number
1434_34
Pages
245 – 254
Language
English
Abstract
Much has changed regarding woody landscape plant breeding in the US in the last quarter century.
Many of these changes were precipitated by landmark legislative and court actions, namely the 1930 US. Plant Patent Act and the 1980 Supreme Court “Chakrabarty vs Diamond” ruling.
These actions allowed intellectual property protection (IPP) for asexually reproduced plants and biological products and processes respectively.
Intellectual property protection made it possible for private sector entities to engage in plant breeding and realize profit from their investment.
Where publicly funded university breeding programs within the US were once one of the only sources of new woody plant cultivars, large nursery operations involved with wholesale distribution of landscape plants now run in-house breeding programs and seek new plants to license for distribution from independent private sector breeders around the world.
Competition for ‘catalog’ space with wholesale distributions has intensified.
Cultivars that do get licensed and marketed commercially spend shorter periods of time on the market before being replaced by new cultivars.
Within the university, continued federal and state level budget cuts have resulted in a ‘pay-to-play’ situation.
University breeding programs now largely rely on external grant funding or royalty revenues to fund research.
Few if any federal or state funding programs exist expressly to fund ornamental plant breeding programs, leaving breeders to conduct any breeding efforts essentially as unfunded ‘bootleg projects’. Royalty revenues have not met initial expectations and currently cannot be depended upon for funding woody plant breeding/cultivar introduction programs.
Considering the human and technological capital existing within universities, consideration should be given to adjusting a university program’s role to leveraging such capital to do what is largely impossible in the private sector: comprehensive germplasm characterizations, trait characterization and localization, and most importantly, developing the tools needed to address breeding challenges presented by global climate change.
The issues and alternatives outlined below reflect the opinions of the lead author and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs and opinions of the co-authors, the University of Minnesota, the symposium organizers, or the companies and individuals who contributed information used in the manuscript.
Many of these changes were precipitated by landmark legislative and court actions, namely the 1930 US. Plant Patent Act and the 1980 Supreme Court “Chakrabarty vs Diamond” ruling.
These actions allowed intellectual property protection (IPP) for asexually reproduced plants and biological products and processes respectively.
Intellectual property protection made it possible for private sector entities to engage in plant breeding and realize profit from their investment.
Where publicly funded university breeding programs within the US were once one of the only sources of new woody plant cultivars, large nursery operations involved with wholesale distribution of landscape plants now run in-house breeding programs and seek new plants to license for distribution from independent private sector breeders around the world.
Competition for ‘catalog’ space with wholesale distributions has intensified.
Cultivars that do get licensed and marketed commercially spend shorter periods of time on the market before being replaced by new cultivars.
Within the university, continued federal and state level budget cuts have resulted in a ‘pay-to-play’ situation.
University breeding programs now largely rely on external grant funding or royalty revenues to fund research.
Few if any federal or state funding programs exist expressly to fund ornamental plant breeding programs, leaving breeders to conduct any breeding efforts essentially as unfunded ‘bootleg projects’. Royalty revenues have not met initial expectations and currently cannot be depended upon for funding woody plant breeding/cultivar introduction programs.
Considering the human and technological capital existing within universities, consideration should be given to adjusting a university program’s role to leveraging such capital to do what is largely impossible in the private sector: comprehensive germplasm characterizations, trait characterization and localization, and most importantly, developing the tools needed to address breeding challenges presented by global climate change.
The issues and alternatives outlined below reflect the opinions of the lead author and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs and opinions of the co-authors, the University of Minnesota, the symposium organizers, or the companies and individuals who contributed information used in the manuscript.
Authors
S.C. Hokanson, S. McNamara, S. Wannemuehler, D. Lopez Arias, C. Yue
Keywords
plant breeding, cultivar introduction, germplasm characterization and enhancement, intellectual property protection, private sector breeding
Online Articles (52)