United Kingdom
May, 2008
An Open Day held for some of the
UK’s leading plant breeders at
NIAB highlighted the latest issues and innovations that
their scientific experts have been working on over the past year
with the National List testing process of Winter Oilseed Rape.
Discussion centred on the contemporary approaches to service
delivery and how to improve the value for money that these
services offer. The event provided a unique opportunity for NIAB
to listen to and respond to the needs of the plant breeders.
DUS testing for National Listing is a statutory EU requirement
and also enables the breeder to own the copyright and earn
royalties from seed sales of a variety which has been submitted
for registration. However, extensive trials and evaluations are
carried out, first to ensure it meets strict DUS requirements –
the “candidate” must be Distinct, Uniform and Stable – according
to guidelines laid out by the Community Plant Variety Office
(CPVO). The process requires measurement and assessment of
morphological characteristics.
NIAB is contracted by DEFRA to conduct the DUS test, underpinned
by a performance improvement system designed to improve the
value for money it offers while retaining a quality service.
Details of these innovation projects and ideas for further
efficiency savings were outlined to DEFRA representatives and
plant breeders who attended the Open Day.
Dr Carol Norris, Technical Manager for Oilseeds at NIAB,
highlighted the challenges of carrying out these tests, where
each candidate variety has to be compared against the reference
collection which contains data on all listed varieties, known as
the “common knowledge” pool. This is increasingly becoming a
longer and more costly process as the already large reference
collection of Winter Oilseed Rape is constantly increasing in
size.
NIAB currently has 493 reference samples for Winter Oilseed Rape
(WOSR) and a number of year 1 and year 2 submissions in the 2008
trial, with each variety replicated three times in the field in
order to provide the required data. Morphological
characteristics are recorded from the plots during the recording
season and added to the DUS database. Once all recording is
finished the data are analysed statistically and the results
interpreted to establish whether the variety in question is
distinct from all others.
In addition to the conventional varieties, there is an
increasing numbers of hybrid varieties that are submitted for
testing. In these instances, the hybrid as well as the two
parent lines and the maintainer line, have to be tested. This
means there are “four “candidates effectively, each needing to
be drilled with three replicate plots.
Jennifer Wyatt, head of Certification and Agricultural DUS at
NIAB, explained how they had been trying to reduce the size of
the reference collection to make the process more efficient and
cost effective:
NIAB is using technical innovations to save time and money. An
example is their use of a laser measuring device which captures
the plant’s height data on the instrument. Previously a tall
hand ruler was used to measure plant height, which required two
people to make an accurate measurement.
NIAB is also pioneering image analysis, using a camera to
capture images of petals or pods. The images are then measured
by a computer programme and the data captured directly onto the
computer. This measuring process was previously carried out by
hand using small rulers and was a very painstaking task.
Nigel Padbury, who is in charge of the oilseeds portfolio for
Syngenta in the UK and Ireland, said there were no answers yet
about what would happen with the reference collection.
“It’s an ongoing discussion that will probably take several
years to get our heads around because it is not just a UK
problem, but a pan-European problem,” He said
Dr Andrew Mitchell, Technical Manager, DEFRA, Plant Varieties
and Seeds Division, said that value for money was crucial, and
that the Open Day had given him an opportunity to meet plant
breeders and discuss feedback about the DUS testing process.
The next event for breeders will be the DUS Cereals Open Day on
June 18th 2008 |
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