GEVES welcomes students from UniLaSalle’s emPLANT programme

20 students from the UniLaSalle Polytechnic Institute were welcomed to GEVES in Anjou on 7 and 8 October 2024. These 2 days enabled them to discover the seed activities carried out by the SNES and the variety activities carried out by the SEV.

On the programme for the^1st day at SNES, the students visited the Physical Analysis and Pathology laboratories. They had the opportunity to analyse germination images and observe seeds analysed by a radicle emergence test and a Tetrazolium viability test.

For their second day at GEVES, these students from the Erasmus Mundus Plant Breeding (emPLANT) course were welcomed to the Brion Variety Study Sector. The morning was devoted to a presentation of GEVES and its missions, as well as the system for registering and protecting new varieties. It ended with an introduction to the Distinctness-Homogeneity-Stability (DUS) test, with practical exercises on a number of Chrysanthemum varieties. In the afternoon, there was a presentation on the management of seed reference collections in cold storage and a visit to DUS trials on vegetable plants. It concluded with an explanation of seed certification and the Value for Sustainable, Culitvation and Use (VSCU) tests.