Grower-led commercial papaya variety evaluation

⁠⁠⁠Request for Proposal: Grower-led commercial papaya variety evaluation (PP23002)

Horticulture Innovation Australia (Hort Innovation) is a not-for-profit, grower-owned Research and Development Corporation (RDC) for Australia’s close to $16 billion horticulture industry. Hort Innovation invests around $120 million in research and development (R&D) and marketing programs annually to provide benefit to industry and the wider community.

Hort Innovation is seeking a suitably qualified, experienced and capable delivery partner for the project: Grower-led commercial papaya variety evaluation (PP23002).

The objectives of the services being sought are to:

1. To bulk up seed stock levels of new papaya varieties developed under project PP18000 – National papaya breeding and evaluation program for use in grower-led commercial evaluation trials.

2. To prepare summaries of new papaya varieties that outline the key traits of these varieties as compared to publicly available industry standard varieties RB1 (red papaya) & 1B (yellow papaya) varieties.

3. To engage with papaya growers interested in evaluating new papaya varieties at commercial scale, including capture of information on variety performance through the supply chain where capture of this information is possible.

4. Provision of relevant seed quantities to growers identified for the evaluation of new papaya varieties, including assistance in capture of evaluation data from grower-led commercial trials and ensuring relevant fit-for-purpose arrangements are in place to undertake evaluation trials. A process to select growers for evaluation trials and ongoing monitoring of this project will be guided by a project reference group.

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.