Closing date: June 27
Request for Proposal
Hort Innovation is seeking a suitably qualified, experienced and capable delivery partner for the project: Avocado rootstock variety access (AV25002).
The objectives of the services being sought are to:
- Investigate and review opportunities to access elite rootstock varieties for Australian growers, including engagement with the Australian nurseries and variety managers supplying avocado planting material to the industry. Consideration should be given to rootstocks that may already be available in Australia, and/or have been assessed overseas with supporting data on rootstock performance.
- Should any avocado scion varieties also be identified during this process and where based on sufficient available supporting data where these scion varieties demonstrate they could significantly outperform current Australian industry standard varieties like Hass, relevant supporting data for these scion varieties should be brought back to the industry reference group for future consideration of further evaluation in Australia.
- With the input from an industry-focused project reference group, develop a prioritised set of key traits and characteristics to assist shortlisting of promising rootstocks varieties to meet Australian production and export market requirements. Only rootstock varieties identified and endorsed by the industry-focused project reference group are to be pursued further.
- Establish new relationships and build on existing relationships to gain access to elite rootstock varieties and promising selections from overseas (e.g. countries such as South Africa, USA, Mexico and Colombia) and Australian variety managers and programs.
- Obtain access to elite rootstock varieties and promising selections under licence or an appropriate Material Transfer Agreement (MTA), complete required Post Entry Quarantine (PEQ) activities.
- Complete design of grower-led and centralised mother block trial sites for rootstock evaluation. The sites considered for grower-led trials are to be determined with input from industry stakeholders (including specifically by the industry-focused project reference group) with consideration of key Australian avocado production regions. Site locations are likely to include the following regions; North Queensland, Central Queensland, South Queensland, Western Australia, Central New South Wales and the Tri-State Region.
- Evaluation trials are to focus on collection of trait data including tree productivity (yield/packout), tendency for biannual/irregular bearing, fruit quality, precocity, dwarfing, phytophthora tolerance, salinity tolerance, scion-rootstock compatibility and general growth habit. Suitable variety-rootstock combinations are to be addressed through trial design and with input from the industry-focused project reference group. This project is to include the proposed design of rootstock evaluation trials for identified rootstocks, not the evaluation trials themselves.
Consideration of clonal versus seedling rootstock sources are to be incorporated into evaluation trial design.
Hort Innovation has prepared a Request for Proposal (RFP) document that provides background information, outlines the scope of services, the procurement process and the information required from interested parties.
The RFP may be downloaded from www.tenders.net (you will need to be a member of tenders.net to access this information).
The closing date for responses is June 27, 3:00PM (AEST).