Background; Pristine Forage Technologies (Pristine)

Pristine Forage Technologies or Pristine was formed in early 1999. It was originally set up as a corporate vehicle for pasture and forage improvement R&D, specialist consulting services in pasture and forage management and utilization and provision of professional services with respect to plant breeding, selection, genetics and commercial protection. It is centered on the world leading expertise and experience of our principal staff, and our world leading IP.

Pristine itself is currently operating breeding and plant improvement programs across a range of annual and perennial legumes, from annual Trifolium through to both annual and perennial Medicago species. It has already developed some outstanding lucerne, medic and balansa clover varieties, including the revolutionary pod holding strand medic Jaguar which we expect to roughly double pasture productivity over millions of hectares.

However, Pristine also recognizes that real world pasture improvement occurs in farmers fields and not in ivory towers. We know that to get the best of the very considerable benefits that our new varieties offer requires knowledgeable farmer input. Our philosophy is that pasture improvement starts with variety improvement, but does not end with it; and neither does our role. We do not just create varieties, but whole technology packages so client farmers can get the combined benefits of both our varieties and the latest agronomic and management tools required to achieve real on-farm results and maximum profits. Through Pristine-client interchange and feedback systems, we collect and evaluate individual farmer experience and use it to further test ideas and build our information base, so that clients are provided with the very latest technology and a system of continuous production and profit improvement.

Pristine prides itself on real achievement created through original thinking, sound science and practical innovation. That means cutting edge technologies and varieties can be conceived, produced and delivered to clients before the idea has even occurred to others, and is based on the quality and enthusiasm of our world leading professional and technical staff.

The professional manager of Pristine, Mr Andrew W.H. Lake, has more than 25 years experience as a professional breeder of annual and perennial pasture legumes, and is internationally recognized as the world's foremost breeder of annual species of Medicago. He is currently the only person in the world to have successfully developed varieties of annual medic through directed crossbreeding and selection, and to date is responsible for the development of eight of them in four different species. These are benchmark cultivars, not only in Australia, but also around the world. Andrew is an expert in variety protection under the Plant Breeders Rights Act and has accumulated decades of experience and knowledge of ley and pasture farming systems and agronomy.

On a practical level, Andrew has logged many thousands of hours as a property manager and part time producer of wool and prime lambs over nearly 30 years. This has resulted in a professional that has real empathy with farmers and farming and an intimate knowledge and understanding of practical agriculture and its interface with the world of R&D. This singular life experience has underwritten the success of his professional career, and continues to provide the basis for his forward thinking and unique insight into the forces driving both the present and the future for pasture and forage industries. It also underwrites his confidence in the future of those industries.

The manager of Pristine technical services, Mrs Ricki E. Drewry likewise has 20-odd years of experience as a senior technician to plant breeding programs. She is internationally recognized as an expert in hybridization and selection techniques for annual legumes, and the world leader in hybridization of what are the very difficult annual Medicago species. Ricki was senior technician in Andrew's breeding and selection team in the public sector. In that role she achieved outstanding success in not only intra-specific hybridization, but also in inter-specific hybridization, thereby enabling gene transfers between species that in the wild are totally genetically isolated. She has several firsts and only to her credit and is currently the only person who has successfully intercrossed a number of different pasture legume species.

On a personal level, Ricki is one of those rare individuals with a world life experience and insight into what drives people that is sufficiently well developed she can predict likely practical and social outcomes with an uncanny degree of accuracy. In many ways she is characterized as a person with uncommonly good common sense, coupled with the capacity to recognize what can and cannot be accomplished with the available technical, human and physical resources. Perhaps paradoxically her recognition and tolerance of normal human failings in others belie her personal drive for high achievement and even perfection. As such, she is an excellent foil to Andrew in the development of Pristine as a deliverer of outstanding outcomes that are tailored to suit the world of real life farmers.

This collective experience and expertise of our staff both underwrites and underscores the capacities of Pristine and demonstrates why we are at the forefront of pasture and forage improvement where it counts; in farmer's fields and ultimately in their bottom lines. We have enormous capacity to improve that bottom line and it is our aim to do so for our clients both in Australia and internationally.

For more information on how you can be a part of this, feel free to contact us.

© 2005 Pristine Forage Technologies. All rights reserved.