
Harmorescoll: a project to share reference material for resistance testing
Harmorescoll aims to improve the availability of reference material (controls, differential hosts, isolates) in DUS resistance testing. Once a year, all participants in this CPVO co-funded project meet to discuss progress and set goals for the next phase. The second-year annual meeting took place in November 2021, by video-conference, with 22 participants from 6 different countries. Discussions on the rules for managing the future network and the harmonised procedures for validation and delivery are almost finalised. An online information portal is in the process of being developed and should be available in a few months. Following the inventory and availability of reference material, it is now possible to draw up a list of candidate material for validation. Once fully defined, experimental tests will begin in 2022. Discussions on the future distribution of reference material among official collections are ongoing.