Crown Research Institutes
As part of CCMAU's analysis of the CRIs' non-financial performance, the
CRIs are required to report annually on their technology transfer
(commercialisation) activities. This report includes case studies from each
CRI on technologies transferred during the past five years and their impact
on New Zealand’s economy, environment, and society. Technology transfer can
take a variety of forms, including licensing deals, seminars and hui, and
the creation of joint ventures.
The following are some abbreviated examples of case studies provided by some
CRIs on their technology transfer activities during 2006/07 and 2007/08
Plant & Food Research -
Spray Plan Manager: A tool to reduce pesticide risks
Agrichemicals play an important role in New Zealand's
agricultural, forestry and horticultural production, a sector that
contributes to more than 20% of New Zealand’s GDP. A recent survey of trends
in pesticide use found that, while use was most intense in horticulture,
this sector had made substantial progress in reducing its dependence on
agrichemicals. Despite this progress, the horticultural sector continues to
be challenged by increasingly restrictive conditions on agrichemical use in
export markets, including both new national and international legislative
requirements and customer assurance programmes that limit growers' crop
protection options.
Spray Plan Manager (SPM) is a new tool designed to help
growers meet these legislative and export market requirements. It provides
easy access to agrichemical information sources and increases growers'
awareness of their responsibilities while also helping them to minimise
compliance costs and risks.
SPM was developed as part of a programme funded by the
Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, which began at HortResearch
(now Plant & Food Research) in 2003. SPM enables growers to prepare their
property spray plans that are required by many of New Zealand's regional
councils and needed to demonstrate compliance with the export sector's
Global GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) programmes. With easy access to
on-line information, SPM helps growers in their selection of the most
environmentally benign pesticides and the control measures required for
their safe use, application and storage. It is geographically referenced,
and has features to enable real-time planning of spray events based on a
three-day weather forecast to help growers avoid potential issues of spray
drift onto neighbouring properties. These SPM features, together with
provision for growers to notify neighbours of their planned agrichemical
use, help growers to demonstrate that they are responsible agrichemical
users.
Before its launch in early July 2007, the researchers
worked with a pilot group of 100 growers to develop SPM. Since its launch,
SPM now has more than 760 registered users.
Scion- A-Grader to measure timber
stiffness
New Zealand Wood’s media advertising campaign reminds us all of the beauty
and resilience of timber as a natural, sustainable material and, hence, the
material of choice for many applications. However, the biological base that
underpins the concept of ‘renewable’ and ‘sustainable’ also lends itself to
timber’s greatest challenge – that of natural biological variability. No
two pieces of timber are exactly the same. New Zealand, which draws its
resource from fast-grown plantation forests, experiences a greater extreme
of variation in timber stiffness and strength within a tree as opposed to
countries that utilise timber from 100+ year-old forests.
In response to this variability, and the growing market demand for
performance standards, the wood processing industry is rapidly moving to
standardise the way it groups timber into stiffness classes and to provide
greater certainty of performance to its customers. Knowing the stiffness of
any given piece of timber allows the customer to decide how they will use
it. Stiffer pieces can be used in more demanding (and therefore more
valuable) applications such as trusses; less stiff pieces can be used in
house framing; and the least stiff timbers can be used for packaging or
lower-grade applications. With the value of timber between two close grades
differing by about 10% to 15%, there is a great incentive for wood
processors to ensure that their material is correctly graded.
Knowing the stiffness of any one piece can also allow the wood processor to
intelligently reconstitute it to produce a more valuable product. For
example, the stiffness of a laminated beam is controlled by the stiffness of
the outer layers. Thus, when making a laminated beam, the manufacturer
places stiff pieces of timber on the outside and less stiff (lower-cost)
pieces in the middle, thereby maximising value and performance.
Traditional proof-testing methods for assessing timber stiffness use a
mechanical displacement technique. This involves measuring the deflection
of the timber under a known load. Although this does measure the stiffness
directly, it is also mechanically complex and requires a substantial
structure to support it.
The A-Grader, developed about 2005 by Scion in conjunction with a private
enterprise, has provided a very acceptable solution to this market need.
The A-grader is a ‘stress-grading’ machine that uses sound waves to measure
timber stiffness. This is extremely fast (microseconds), requires a
relatively small machine, and can work on very small pieces of timber. The
A-Grader is a simple machine, with a small footprint that easily fits into
most wood processing operations. It is also highly versatile, allowing
individual companies to modify it to their particular needs. The benefits
that the A-Grader has provided have been extensive. A recent independent
review of the A-Grader across all current sites has indicated both a variety
of applications and benefits. The benefits include:
an ability to meet market demand for MSG (machine stress graded) timber in
New Zealand and Australia,
‘more than 20% improvement in economic outturn’,
‘it was the difference between staying in structural products and not’,
‘best value for money grading of timber in rough-sawn state’,
‘cannot operate the sawmill without the A-grader if we want to be in the
structural market’,
‘absolutely integral to strategy on how we run the business’,
‘helped us get a premium price initially but now everyone is doing it!’.
Since the first prototype was built in 2005, the A-grader has been installed
by a number of sawmills and remanufacturing companies. There are already
some 14 operating in a variety of wood processing companies throughout New
Zealand, which by any standards is a rapid uptake for a new product. Every
month in New Zealand over 100,000 cubic metres of timber is assessed by the
A-Grader. This development has played a vital role in enabling the wood
processing industry to meet higher standards of product quality assurance to
consumers.
Landcare Research-
carboNZero certification
Global trade faces a carbon-constrained future. In key
markets for New Zealand’s agricultural and horticultural exports, trading
partners are both cutting their own carbon
emissions and increasingly
importing products with
demonstrated low environmental impact. Food miles are an
increasing – if not entirely
rational – concern. In the northern hemisphere the ‘green finger’ is being
pointed at New Zealand, because of our distance from markets. carboNZero
certification provides a significant edge in competitive international trade
by providing independently verified proof
that New Zealand is providing
the environmentally responsible products that markets seek. The value of
secure access to UK markets alone for New Zealand’s agricultural and
horticultural produce is over $1 billion.
Landcare
Research established the carboNZero programme in 2001 to research and test a
range of tools to reduce or offset greenhouse gas emissions with the highest
level of credibility and integrity. Since mid 2007, the carboNZero
programme has established proof of concept, and it is now preparing to be
spun out as a fully owned subsidiary company of Landcare Research. carboNZero
evolved from an initial investment of about $600,000 from Landcare
Research’s retained earnings. Initial research involved less than one
full-time research equivalent (FTE). The carboNZero team has since
increased from 1.2 FTE (August 2006) to 16 staff (December 2008), working as
a strategic business unit within Landcare Research, with an independent
advisory panel, a technical advisory group, and over 20 authorised external
auditors.
The
potential benefit to New Zealand from adoption of carbon-neutral
certification systems such as the carboNZero programme is huge. It is
estimated that increased export returns from wine and kiwifruit industries
alone would be in the order of $140 million. However, potentially much more
significant is the opportunity offered by carbon neutral certification to
limit risks to overseas markets for New Zealand’s agricultural and
horticultural exports that currently provide 4.8% of New Zealand’s
$136 billion GDP.
Some 40
New Zealand organisations and events have already earned carboNZero
certification and the carboNZero team is helping more than 200 companies to
measure, manage, and mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions for a more
environmentally-friendly trading future.
AgResearch-
AR37 Ryegrass Endophyte
The large majority of New
Zealand’s $14.2 billion in agriculture exports (adding together meat, wool,
dairy, livestock and processed agricultural exports) are
derived from animals that consume pasture.
The perennial ryegrass on which much
of New Zealand’s pastoral agriculture depends uses a symbiosis (close and
often long-term interactions between different biological species) with a
fungus that grows within the plant. It is known as an “endophyte” and
produces toxins that protect the plant from insect pests. Unfortunately,
some of the toxins produced cause animal health problems and reduce the
amount of meat or milk produced by grazing animals. AgResearch researchers
therefore sought “novel” endophyte strains that would not cause health
problems in grazing animals.
The “AR37” endophyte was
identified, along with a number of other endophyte strains, during the 1980s
and early 1990s. The novel endophyte AR37 that provides ryegrass with the
insect protection advantages and plant persistence delivered by standard
endophytes, but has few adverse effects on animal health. Agronomic trials
of AR37 began in the mid-1990s. In 11 trials sown over 2 years and 4 regions
of the country, a range of endophytes were tested against nil-endophyte
ryegrass and ryegrass containing the standard endophyte. The outstanding
feature of these trial results was the better production and persistence
that AR37 imparted on the ryegrass.
AgResearch – pasture quality workshops
The
productivity of sheep and beef animals (from which New Zealand derived
$6.3 million in export value during 2006) is closely related to the
amount and degree of utilisation of the forage that they are fed.
Forage quality, rather than quantity, is a major driver of animal
performance and is affected by a range of farming and business
management practices including the use of fertilisers, planting of
forage crops, re-sowing of pastures, and stocking rates. Unfortunately,
the impacts of forage quality on animal production have been
traditionally less well understood than the effects of insufficient
pasture quality.
Meat and
Wool New Zealand (formerly known as Meat New Zealand) is and always has
been a major client for AgResearch. In 1998, AgResearch and Meat New
Zealand identified a need to develop a synthesis of animal and pasture
science that would allow farmers to understand the principles that
determine forage quality and to implement these on-farm. For farmers to
gain the benefit of that understanding, it was also identified that it
would be necessary to incorporate a significant component of adult
learning to ensure effective uptake and application of biological
knowledge.
Thus,
from 1998 to 2004, Meat New Zealand contracted AgResearch to provide a
number of services, including the organisation of the ‘Meat New Zealand
Pasture Quality Workshops’. The workshops were delivered to about 2800
attendees. The workshops built on many decades of pasture and animal
science as well as new research on the most effective ways for farmers
to understand to make use of that science.
Each
workshop was facilitated by an AgResearch staff member and a consultant
from Agriculture New Zealand (a training/consultancy business within PGG
Wrightson). They were held in a rural area with pre-prepared pasture
plots so that an outdoor exercise could be held to provide hands-on
training in pasture quality and quantity assessment. It was estimated
that workshop attendees represented about 15% of the sheep and beef
farms in New Zealand.
Two
surveys of attendees were carried out up to 12 months after they
attended a workshop: 86% of respondents reported that the workshop had
changed their thinking towards pasture quality and 80% reported that the
workshop had improved their confidence in managing pasture quality.
About 42% had been able to use some of the knowledge and skills learned
in the workshop.
Based on
the survey results that 42% were using knowledge and skills learned in
the workshop, it is reasonable to expect these attendees made a change
in managing pasture quality that resulted in an improvement in
production volume. Applying the skills learned in the workshop could
boost lamb and cattle slaughter weight by 8%, lambing rates by 1.5%, and
wool production by 1%. This could have resulted in a total increase in
export value of about $61 million by the end of 2006, at very little
cost. The impact could have been wider, however, as, besides those
attending, there was a lot of media attention surrounding the workshops,
which could have conveyed some further awareness. There are also
indications that a lot of knowledge transfer is informal and takes place
between farmers ‘over the fence’.
Thus,
through the workshops, AgResearch passed on knowledge that arose from
its research that led to direct benefits for the farming community, and
ultimately for New Zealand as a whole in terms of increased export
income.
GNS Science – oil and gas exploration
Several
firms are currently exploring for oil and gas at the bottom of the South
Island. A commitment in 2007 by New Zealand and overseas exploration
licence-holders to invest over $1 billion in exploring for oil and gas
equates to a doubling of the investment of exploration in New Zealand.
A major discovery in the Great South Basin would transform the New
Zealand economy.
GNS
Science’s hydrocarbons exploration consulting group is the largest in
New Zealand. The group contributes to the discovery and development of
oil and gas fields in New Zealand and the Pacific region.
GNS
Science has played an important part in promoting interest and
increasing awareness of potential oil and gas reserves in the Great
South Basin. GNS Science’s involvement with this region goes back many
years. In 1999, the company published a study which synthesised three
decades of government and industry research. In 2002, the company
produced a comprehensive review that provides workstation-ready data and
analysis needed by the petroleum exploration industry to evaluative
prospectivity. This Great South Basin Regional Review covers a number
of features including all exploration to date, an analysis of well
failures from the 1970s and 1980s, estimated oil and gas volumes, and a
discussion of the main exploration risk factors. A number of
exploration companies have described it as the most useful and best
produced prospectivity product which they have seen. In 2006, GNS
Science processed and interpreted 3100km of seismic data, which
indicates a good chance of petroleum reserves. The company has also run
workshops and field trips for companies looking at exploring in the
area. Funding for these activities has come mostly from FRST contracts,
augmented by specific commercial projects.
This
enduring effort and the breath of its knowledge and expertise make GNS
Science the first port of call for companies assessing the Great South
Basin and a catalyst for exploration of the region. The finding of oil
and gas deposits would have several significant impacts, including
helping to reduce New Zealand’s reliance on imported oil, replenishing
our natural gas reserves, boosting the Southland economy, generating
export earnings, and providing cash that can be used to research and
develop other energy alternatives for New Zealand.
HortResearch – development of the JAZZ apple
JAZZ is
a well known New Zealand product recognised worldwide as an outstanding
innovation that provides New Zealand’s pipfruit industry with a valuable
product and point of difference in an increasingly competitive
international marketplace.
JAZZ is
the brand name under which ENZA markets the fruit of the ‘Scifresh’
apple cultivar. ‘Scifresh’ was bred by researchers at HortResearch in a
process that began in 1984 with the crossing of two cultivars.
‘Scifresh’ was released to the market 20 years later. Research was
funded by FRST, grower levies, and HortResearch’s internal investment.
The rights to grow and market ‘Scifresh’ were passed to ENZA in exchange
for an ongoing royalty. The superior eating qualities of JAZZ have
combined with its high-yield potential to create what is now a
sought-after apple variety in global markets. This means that ENZA is
able to achieve a price premium for JAZZ, which is a benefit for New
Zealand growers.
JAZZ has
proved to be a successful new commercial apple cultivar grown and sold
globally by a New Zealand company. JAZZ now represents 6.1% of New
Zealand’s apple orchards, with export production in 2006 of 4,400
tonnes. Besides initial breeding of the new variety, HortResearch’s
involvement continues. HortResearch scientists meet annually with ENZA
technical staff and JAZZ grower panels to review issues relating to the
management of the variety, including ongoing R&D needs. This includes
reduction in soft scald (a tissue disorder which affects product
quality) and ‘blind wood’ which affects bud development and, hence, tree
productivity.
The
development of the JAZZ apple has provided a number of benefits.
It underpins profitability for New Zealand apple growers, the ability to
enter new markets with a new product, export income for New Zealand, and
a new source of food for consumers across the world.
Scion – addressing the issue of leaky homes
Houses
are the largest single asset for most New Zealanders. In 2000, many New
Zealanders’ confidence was affected by the ‘leaky house syndrome’ which
hit the press. Over 15,000 homes were believed to be affected by repair
bills which, by December 2006, were estimated to be in the range of $5
billion to $10 billion. With building activity at an all-time high, the
issue had the potential to escalate out of control.
With 30
years’ experience in timber treatment and light timber frame
construction, Scion was engaged to find a solution before the damage to
New Zealand’s housing industry and timber framing market became
irreparable.
The
research challenge given to Scion was to develop accelerated testing
protocols that allowed treated systems to be evaluated in short time
frames. The outcomes could then inform the wood processing and wood
treatment industries and form the base of new standards for New
Zealand. Funding came from the wood treatment industry and FRST and the
research programme was initiated in mid-2000.
Scion
developed a standardised technique that could compare numerous
treatments in a period of 25 weeks, which was a substantial reduction
from the typical test periods in excess of 12 months. The technique
involved developing a procedure for infecting timber simultaneously with
two types of decay fungi and exposing the infected and wet wall
structure to high temperatures and humidity. Using these methods, Scion
was able to test seven timber treatment options in a relatively short
time to determine which conferred framing timber resistance before,
during, and after construction.
As a
result of Scion’s testing protocols, new treating requirements and
standards were introduced. Thus, the building industry received
guidance as to what type of timber product to use. The industry could
then provide home owners with greater certainty in the use of building
products.
With up
to 25,000 new homes being built in New Zealand each year and a very
large structural lumber industry (with sales of about $1 billion per
annum), any delayed solution would have created a cost to New Zealand of
several hundreds of millions of dollars. Timber continues to be the
framing material of choice and building practice has now improved to
provide New Zealanders with security about the integrity and value of
their largest single asset.
