55th meeting of the UPOV Working Group on Fruit Species

The 55th meeting of the UPOV Working Group for Fruit Species (TWF) was held from 3 to 6 June 2024 by videoconference. Bringing together 71 participants from 28 UPOV members, it enabled discussions to begin on fundamental technical points for DUS, such as the number of observation cycles required to carry out the tests, or the number of plants to be considered for different types of characteristics. Numerous description guides were also reviewed.

This videoconference meeting format gives many participants the opportunity to join in the discussions, in particular observers such as Surinam and Mauritius, or technical experts who may be called upon during discussions on DUS guides.

For this 2024 meeting, a large part of the working time was devoted to discussions on how to record certain quantitative characteristics. UPOV allows quantitative observations to be made based on a single element representative of the expression of the characteristic, or based on measurements taken on several elements, with the possibility of deriving statistics. For fruit species, where the DUS test is often carried out on a small number of plants, it is necessary to ensure that the number of plant parts observed or measured is sufficient to obtain a reliable description. The aim of these discussions is to agree on our understanding of the texts and, if necessary, to amend them so that they reflect the practices of the examination offices.

France has presented the first version of a total revision of the Japanese Plum guide: this work will make it possible to extend the coverage of this document to interspecific hybrids with Prunus salicina, to add or modify the characteristics studied accordingly, and to modernise the example varieties.

A similar procedure has been initiated for the Japanese Pear guide by our Japanese colleagues.

The next TWF meeting will be held in Turkey in June 2025.