Given the exceptional circumstances and the heavy disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis across the EU, the President of the CPVO has taken the decision to extend deadlines that fall in the period 17 March – 3 May included, until 4 May 2020 for parties to proceedings before the CPVO and the Board of Appeal.
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How the CPVO solved the controversy over mandatory disease resistance testing
EUROPEAN SEED (ES): DUS TESTING IS DONE ON PHENOTYPE, INCLUDING FOR DISEASE RESISTANCE CHARACTERISTICS. DO YOU THINK DISEASE RESISTANCE CHARACTERISTICS SHOULD APPEAR IN PBR TEST GUIDELINES?
SERGIO SEMON (SFS): The CPVO DUS test protocols are not only applicable to tests for EU and national plant variety protection in EU Member States but also to tests carried out to grant market access under the seed marketing legislation. The protocols contain a table of characteristics, which will result in the phenotypical fingerprint of the candidate variety. There are obvious characteristics such as leaf length, fruit colour, time of maturity, etc. Then for some species, there are also some disease and insect resistance characteristics which are also tested. The creation of disease and insect resistant varieties is an important breeding goal of several seed companies. It is also important for farmers and growers to know whether a certain variety is resistant to a disease or insect. For this reason, the DUS test protocol should reflect these breeding advances. Not only can new varieties be declared distinct based solely on their disease and insect resistance profile, but the information as to whether a variety is resistant or not can also prove to be invaluable in the design of the DUS trial. Since most of the disease and insect resistance characteristics in the DUS test protocol are qualitative (the resistance is either absent or present), such characteristics are highly discriminatory and as a result can greatly reduce the number of comparison varieties grown out in the DUS trial. This makes for a more focused and cost-effective technical examination. [...]
Read complete article published on European Seed Website, Vol. 4, Issue 4 here