2024 Meeting of European DUS experts on vegetable crops

On 6 and 7 November, the CPVO organised its annual meeting of vegetable variety experts. The meeting brought together experts from around fifteen countries whose activities are linked to the intellectual protection of vegetable varieties in Europe, with updates on the DUS protocols for several species and general topics.

The extensive list of topics included updates to the DUS protocols, for which several preparatory meetings had been held. The revision of the Chinese cabbage, kale, industrial chicory, spinach, rutabaga and pepper – chilli pepper DUS protocols was approved at this session in early November. As for the revision of the courgette, tomato, cucumber, lettuce and asparagus DUS protocols, discussions have not yet been finalised and will continue.

More general topics were also discussed. These included the topics of “single observation of certain DUS characteristics”, “harmonisation of requests for seed samples” and “unavailability of seed of control varieties”, which led to discussions between experts from different countries. The CPVO also gave an update on current discussions at UPOV level on the subject of genetic resistance testing. ECO-PB (European Consortium for Organic Plant Breeding) reported on the progress of discussions at the Liveseeding project’s annual meeting in early September.

GEVES also presented its method of managing varieties that have lost all official status, in connection with the concept of varieties of common knowledge.

Finally, among the R&D projects in progress, GEVES presented the progress made on the Harmorescoll, ToBR-Ag and INVITE projects, which it is currently coordinating.