Comparative analysis of test guidelines for distinctness, uniformity and stability of Fig (Ficus carica L.) formulated by China and UPOV

Abstract: New varieties are important for the development of fruit industry. New variety identification is crucial to grand plant breeder’s right and pre-condition for plant breeder’s right protection. Distinct-ness, uniformity and stability are obligatory characters for new varieties. Test guidelines for various plants are published by UPOV and its member countries, and they serve as technical standard for testing the distinctness, uniformity and stability of a certain tested variety. Test guidelines lay a sound basis for judging whether the tested varieties are new varieties and whether the plant breeder’s right can be grant-ed. Fig is one of the earliest human being domesticated fruit crops in the world. In China, the growing fig varieties have increased from a few to a few dozens, and new fig varieties are constantly produced by crossing, mutation and introduced from abroad. There is increased requirement in new variety registration and protection. Based on the needs of industrial development and new variety test applications, the DUS testing guidelines for fig varieties can serve as a powerful safeguard in fig variety breeding, variety protection, and market supervision in China. In this study, the testing guidelines of fig (Ficus carica L.) published by China and UPOV were compared in the aspects of required material, method of examination, assessment of distinctness, uniformity and stability, test characteristics and the correspond-ing assay/observation period. Fig variety distinctness, uniformity and stability test guideline TG/265/1, formulated by UPOV, was implemented in 2010. Test guideline NY/T 2587, formulated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of China, was implemented in 2014. The two guidelines require the same in number of growing cycles, test place and test period. The differences are mainly reflected in he required amount of breeding materials, test design, test characteristics and so on. In terms of material requirements and test design, NY/T 2587 increases the number of submitted plants and plants in the test field, and more detailed quality and planting requirements are included. Specifically, the material needs to be supplied in the form of one-year-old plants with at least 60 cm in height, the stem diameter needs to be more than 0.8 cm at 5 cm from the base, the buds need to be well developed with a sound appearance, as well as at least 6 roots per plants is required, and the base of each root should be at least 0.2 cm in diameter. In terms of test characteristics, the corresponding content of the two test guidelines are comprehensively analyzed and classified: the test characteristics can be divided into basic character-istics, asterisked characteristics (*), grouping characteristics, additional characteristics and technical questionnaire characteristics. UPOV TG/265/1 has 78 basic characteristics, including 56 asterisked characteristics, 6 grouping characteristics and 6 technical questionnaire characteristics. China NY/T 2587 has 63 basic characteristics, 5 grouping characteristics, 5 additional characteristics and 9 technical ques-tionnaire characteristics. The test characteristics can be further assigned into 6 groups based on their contents, i.e. plant (tree) characteristics, one-year-old shoot characteristics, two-year-old shoot character-istics, terminal bud characteristics, leaf characteristics, and fruit characteristics. The two guidelines are different in the numbers of these characteristics. TG/265/1 guideline has 53 fruit characteristics, of which the first crop and main crop each account for 26 fruit characteristics respectively. NY/T 2587 guideline has 33 fruit characteristics that are only required for the main crop. TG/265/1 takes into ac-count the characteristics of fig fruit ripening under natural conditions, including both main crop grow-ing on the current year young shoots, but also on the one-year-old shoots. In terms of leaf characteristics and one-year-old shoot characteristics, NY/T 2587 deletes or adds some characteristics, and adjusts the states of expression and the corresponding grade levels of some characteristics to make leaf observation and branch observation to be more detailed. TG/265/1 has one more quality characteristic than NY/T 2587: the variety type of figs. Five types of fig are described based on cropping and pollination charac-teristics by TG/265/1, namely Unífera, Bífera, Smyrna, San Pedro and Caprifig. NY/T 2587 lists variety types in its Appendix C: Fig Technical Questionnaire, which does not subdivide common figs into Unífera and Bífera. Example varieties are the standard varieties as references or correction of the state of expression of the descriptive characteristics in the test guidelines. UPOV TG/265/1 has 85 example varieties, while China NY/T 2587 has only 20 example varieties. Not only are there fewer in number of example varieties of NY/T 2587, but also some of the example varieties are hard to be found in China, and moreover, many of the test characteristics are not referenced with example varieties. The technical questionnaire is an integral part of the DUS test guidelines, which mainly deals with the basic information of the variety provided by breeders. There are remarkable differences in the technical questionnaire between China NY/T 2587 and UPOV TG/265/1. The technical questionnaire of TG/265/1 mainly in-cludes six parts, i.e. genus/species, applicant (name and address), proposed denomination or breeder’s reference, information on the origin, characteristics of the variety to be indicated, and similar varieties and the differences from these varieties. The technical questionnaire of NY/T 2587 mainly includes tentative name of the variety, botanical classification, variety type, a representative color photograph of the variety, information that helps to identify the applied test variety, special conditions for growing the variety or conducting the examination, special conditions for maintenance of the variety and characteristics of the variety to be indicated. The authors have accumulated almost ten years’experience in fig DUS test, in order to improve the operability and applicability of the China fig DUS test guideline, and our revision suggestions are put forward for the NY/T 2587 test guideline, and the role of molecular markers is discussed in fig variety identification.