Plant breeders' rights may seem like more red-tape and royalties as yet another tax, but without them there would be much less incentive to breed and introduce varieties. And these new plants give the ornamentals industry its vitality and keep the customers returning to garden centres. Plant breeding is relatively expensive work - maintaining parental stock, selecting promising new lines and then trialing them under a variety of environmental conditions. All this work has to be paid for. So, royalties are collected on new varieties at a rate of between two pence per unit on bedding plants and 20p per unit for roses. Fryer's Nurseries has about 30 registered varieties of rose including 'Sweet Dream', which has been registered since 1988. The Cheshire company sells around 250,000 units each year. Managing director Gareth Fryer says the nursery registers a new variety as soon as it knows it is promising. It does its own trials in the UK and usually finds a reliable nursery that will do overseas trials. But it may take a further four or five years before Fryer can tell how successful a variety will be in the market-place.
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