Sector guide · Turf farms
Paddock condition, varieties and the grow cycle
A buyer is purchasing standing inventory that takes months to replace. What is in the ground, at what stage of maturity, across how many hectares, in which varieties.
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A buyer is purchasing standing inventory that takes months to replace. What is in the ground, at what stage of maturity, across how many hectares, in which varieties.
They will assess variety mix against current market demand, since preferences shift and a paddock of something falling out of favour is worth less than the hectares suggest. They will look at rotation planning, how long between harvest and the next saleable crop, soil condition and whether the paddocks have been managed for the long term or pushed hard for recent yield. That last point matters. A farm run hard for two years before sale shows up in soil test results and an experienced buyer will look.
Plant Breeder’s Rights, and what a licensed variety is worth at settlement
Plant Breeder’s Rights are exclusive commercial rights over a new plant variety, granted under the Plant Breeder’s Rights Act 1994 (Cth) and administered by IP Australia. The holder can reproduce or propagate the plant and plant material for commercial purposes, or license its propagation. The holder can also sell the plant material or license its sale, import and export the material, and sell the right to another party. That last right is the one that makes a PBR an asset rather than a permission.
Protection is finite and it has to be maintained. IP Australia states that rights run up to 20 years for plant varieties generally, with 25 years reserved for trees and specified vines, and that annual renewal fees are required to maintain protection. Turf grasses sit in the 20 year class. A licence over an expired right has a very different commercial value from a licence over a live one, so the expiry date is a due diligence item, not trivia.
There are two public search points. The Australian Plant Breeder’s Rights Search sits at ipsearch.ipaustralia.gov.au, and the PBR database sits at pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au. The database is searchable by common name, breeder’s code, trade reference, other reference, title holder, application number, and by start, finish, received, accepted and granted dates. It shows descriptions and images for varieties granted full rights under section 44 of the Plant Breeder’s Rights Act 1994 or section 26 of the Plant Variety Rights Act 1987, and it excludes applications still at received status. Where the variety was bred overseas, the international register is UPOV PLUTO.
Search the trade mark register at the same time. IP Australia directs applicants there, because a turf variety is usually sold under a registered trade mark as well as a plant right. Those are two separate registrations with two separate renewal cycles, and a grower can hold a licence to one without the other. The brand a landscaper asks for by name is often the trade mark.
How a licensed turf variety works in practice, and whether the licence follows the farm
Turf varieties in Australia are typically controlled by a breeder or a licensing company that appoints a network of licensed grower members. Two examples are on the public record. TurfBreed Pty Ltd markets Palmetto Soft Leaf Buffalo, publishes a breeder code of PBR: SS100, uses the registered mark Palmetto and runs a grower recruitment programme. Lawn Solutions Australia describes obtaining a Plant Breeder’s Rights extension for Sir Walter, Stenotaphrum secundatum, ahead of its original expiry of 28 March 2018. Lawn Solutions Australia states that a company producing or selling the protected variety without a licence is subject to significant legal ramifications in retrospect. Lawn Solutions Australia also states that its licensed growers have all undergone DNA testing on their varieties.
The commercial architecture is usually the same shape. A royalty is paid per square metre sold or per unit of planting material, the licence names a territory, the licence sets minimum volumes or minimum standards, and the licensor retains audit rights and sometimes DNA verification rights. Those clauses are the reason a licensed variety can carry a price premium at the farm gate and a consent risk at settlement.
The transfer question has a clean answer. The Plant Breeder’s Rights themselves are property that can be assigned or licensed under the Act. Your grower licence is not a plant right. It is a contract between the licensor and the named grower, and whether it passes to a buyer of the farm depends on the assignment and change of control clauses in that agreement, not on the land contract. A change of control clause can be triggered by a share sale just as an assignment clause is triggered by an asset sale, so choosing a different deal structure does not sidestep the consent.
Handle it as a named third party consent with an owner and a deadline. Confirm before exchange whether the licensor will novate the licence, issue a new licence to the buyer, or refuse. Put the royalty rate, the minimum volumes, the territory, the audit rights and the DNA certification status in the data room. A buyer who finds out after exchange that the variety in your best paddocks cannot be sold under its brand name will reprice the deal, and they will be entitled to.
One caution on detail. Palmetto’s Australian PBR application number, grant date, expiry date and current title holder are not confirmed here, because the IP Australia search returns its data through a script that could not be read directly. The breeder code published by TurfBreed is a breeder style reference, not a confirmed Australian grant number. Look up your own variety on the PBR database and take the grant and expiry details from the register itself.
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