CPVO DUS experts for fruit species meet at Zaragoza

The annual meeting of the european DUS experts for fruits species, organized by CPVO for its examination offices, was held at CITA (Centro de Investigacion y Tecnologia Agroalimentaria de Aragon) in Zaragoza. The research center hosts the OEVV’s (Oficina Española de Variedades Vegetales) unit in charge of DUS testing for peach, almond and sweetcherry, some major species for the fruit production in Spain.

Discussions focused largely on:

• the procedures for managing plant material in DUS trials (ordering, health quality, information exchange),
• the possibilities offered by various research projects (the INVITE project, for example),

for integrating image analysis into the tools made available to examiners, thereby making it possible to improve the reliability and automate the scoring of certain quantitative characteristics describing leaves or fruit.

The group visited the plots dedicated to DUS : large investments are made to optimize the comparison of the varieties, and also to secure the orchards against frost and hail.

This meeting on the field is an excellent occasion for GEVES to exchange ideas with its counterparts and to move forward in a continuous progress approach.