Plants For Europe has reached agreement with ProVaR (Protected Varieties Limited) so that ProVaR may offer selected varieties from the PFE portfolio to growers in the UK and Ireland.

Plants For Europe is very pleased to have joined ProVaR. Graham Spencer, company director, said: “PFE has joined ProVaR so that selected non-exclusive varieties from the PFE portfolio can be licensed by growers through the ProVaR organisation. It allows us to reach many smaller and medium sized growers effectively and will give greater access to these varieties – which will certainly increase royalty revenue for the breeders.”

From 2010-11, growers will be able to obtain licenses for ten varieties from PFE through ProVaR, including varieties of Cytisus, Lysimachia, Phlox, Phygelius, Prunella and Pulmonaria. These are all first class plants that are deserving of a wider audience.

Charles Carr of ProVaR said: “It is exciting to see the ProVaR portfolio growing each year and we are pleased to welcome another well known member of the new plant community into the organisation.”

Please note that only selected varieties will be offered through ProVaR. All other varieties will be licensed exclusively by PFE in the UK and Ireland.

Congratulations to Paul Roman and the rest of the organization team at the revamped Southern Growers Exhibition held today at Roundstone Nursery. By my reckoning, it was a great success, with many more exhibitors and vastly increased numbers of visitors. For me, in recent years, this events only merited attendance because it was local - this time, there were some really useful contacts to be made and renewed, which is the mark of a truly useful event.

The Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) is set to announce that, from January 2010, the Gazette and most other publications will be available in electronic format only and will be free of charge. This will be a boon to those of us who have found purchasing a subscription to the paper format of the Gazette to be difficult, as obtaining EU publications is limited to only two resellers in the UK who are not always as helpful as they might be (I’ve been awaiting an email response from TSO for, oh, about six months now).

The Gazette is the official record of all applications and grants of Community PVR. Only the Gazette acts as the official record - the online database at the CPVO website carries disclaimers to state that it would not be admissable as evidence and should not be regarded, therefore, as entirely accurate.

The only publication that will continue to be available in paper format will be the annual report. This, and most other publications, have been available in electronic format for some time. Check the EU Bookshop and enter "Community Plant Variety Office" as search term.

From January, the Gazette will be available from www.cpvo.europa.eu as PDF format documents.

The BBC is reporting that scientists have agreed on a system for DNA barcodes for plants. They see applications in monitoring the trade in CITES-protected plants and also in forensics.

I wonder if it might have applications in protecting against the illegal trade in PVR- or patent-protected plants, particularly if it was married with some sort of simple hand-held equipment which allowed people with limited training (perhaps customs officials) to sample consignments of plant material. But I also wonder how much information can be contained in the limited fragments of DNA that they are using (it might be good enough to identify plants at species level, but perhaps not good enough to identify individual varieties - Alstroemeria, for example, are notoriously similar in terms of DNA when varieties are compared) and also how long it will take to compile a comprehensive DNA database (the current Plant Finder lists over 75,000 varieties of plant available to purchase in the UK).

Both CIOPORA and the CPVO have been looking into the issue of DNA fingerprinting for protected plants - I believe that the CPVO is conducting a pilot project with the genus Rosa. Perhaps we will see more developments on this in the future.

It barely seems a year since the last Week 24 Flower Trials, but that time has come around again already.

Graham will be in the Netherlands for the trials from Wednesday 10 June to Friday 12 June inclusive. Want a meeting? Then contact us in the normal way!

See www.flowertrials.nl

It’s interesting to see that the CPVO is happy to work with nations outside of UPOV. Taiwan is currently not a member, but judging by this Taiwan News article, the CPVO has a dialogue with them. Reading between the lines of this article, it seems that the Taiwanese authorities and the CPVO have agreed to mutually recognise each other’s DUS examination reports for orchids. I’m hoping that this will be extended to other species, as Taiwan is potentially a useful market for other genera such as Azalea, Chrysanthemum, Asteraceae in general and Hibiscus, all of which are being worked on by PFE’s breeder clients.