We have likely all heard the term “registered variety” but what does that mean? What kind of registration criteria exist for different field crops and how does that system work in Ontario?
What is a registered variety?
Registered varieties are unique cultivars, each with their own registration number and a name they must be marketed under. The CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) has a public database of registered varieties for different kinds of crops, and details in the database include when the variety was registered and whether it has a national or regional (e.g. Ontario only) registration status. The sponsor of each variety is required to submit a seed sample to the Variety Registration Office (VRO) within CFIA at the time of registration, as well as a description of the physical characteristics and any unique genetic traits of the crop plant.
For some crops, there exists a committee of value chain members that must approve of a variety before it is registered*. Examples include the Ontario Cereal Crop Committee which is responsible for approval of cereals such as oats, barley, and spring and winter wheat, and the Ontario Pulse Crop Committee whose primary focus is dry edible beans. These committees set the criteria by which new varieties must be assessed. The criteria are focused on agronomic performance and grain quality. The committee must recommend varieties for registration before CFIA will move forward with a request for registration from the seed sponsor.
For other crops, including soybeans and alfalfa, recommendation for registration by a committee is not required and the seed companies can complete registration packages without going through a committee**. For corn, no registration is required at all. At some point in history the committee of value chain members for corn, soybeans and alfalfa decided that assessing the merit of varieties in public trials was not feasible or not bringing value to the Ontario industry, so they made a request to CFIA to change the registration requirements. This required a change in legislation, specifically the Seeds Act. In the case of corn and soybeans, one key driver in this decision was the relatively fast turnover in new varieties entering the market. Another factor was the low likelihood of harm to the industry from varieties becoming available to producers without being publicly tested for yield. A version of the corn and soybean committees still exist, but their focus is testing performance of varieties across Ontario and making that data available to producers.
Criteria for Assessing Merit of a Variety
For crops that require recommendation for registration, the key purpose of the committee is to establish and administer protocols for testing varieties and to determine the merit of varieties. Merit criteria can be one or more characteristics of a variety that provide value. Generally speaking, varieties have merit if they are high yielding and produce high quality grain. For winter wheat, candidate varieties are assessed for yield, numerous agronomic characteristics such as winter survival and number of days to heading, and resistance to fusarium and DON (deoxynivalenol). They must also meet a host of quality standards. Winter canola merit criteria include yield, winter survival, oil content, other grain quality factors, and disease resistance.
The committee decides what varieties are used to compare the candidate to. These are known as the check varieties and the committee selects checks they feel represent an appropriate standard in Ontario for each criterion. For dry beans the check varieties for yield are the commonly grown and/or strong yielding varieties in each market class and checks with different maturity ratings (days to maturity) are used for each growing region. There are also cooking quality checks which meet industry expectations on how the dry beans perform when canned and cooked.
The CFIA stipulate that, by default, the standard for merit is to be equal to the check. For example, where yield is being evaluated as a merit criterion, the yield of the new variety being tested must be at least equal to the yield of the check variety as per CFIA’s rules. The committee can decide to set the criteria higher if they feel that is feasible and beneficial to the industry (e.g. equal to the check plus 1%). They also have some room to set aside the rules if the variety has other highly valuable traits but is slightly lacking in one specific criterion like yield.
More on the Role of Recommending Committees
Recommending committees are officially recognized by the federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. They are “composed of a balanced representation reflecting the full value chain of stakeholders for that crop sector” so the decisions they make represent a consensus in the crop sector. The committees decide what organizations are given a voting role to fulfill that obligation and are open to suggestions and changes to the list of voting member organizations that can bring forward a representative. They include producer groups, seed dealers, researchers, plant breeders, end users, government staff and more.
Although varieties may be registered nationally, committees’ function within a region of Canada. For example, there is an Ontario Pulse Crop Committee as well as a Prairie Recommending Committee for Pulses and Special Crops. They each develop their own operating procedures, and both can recommend dry bean varieties for national registration.
Recommending committees set out their operating procedures in a document that is updated and approved annually by the CFIA. It outlines meeting procedures, merit criteria, standards on how field trials are run and the procedures for other tests such as quality analyses. They describe all the data that must be collected and how it is analyzed. Recommending committees meet a few times per year, and may also run public field trials at multiple locations from which all the data is collected. They may also accept data from privately run trials that are run according to the same protocols and are inspected by the committee.
Dedicated individuals from across the Ontario field crop value chain commit their time and energy to the variety recommending committees. A number of these people have long histories with the committees and their knowledge and experience is a significant part of our efficient and effective registration system. Their goals include protecting producers, protecting Ontario’s reputation as a producer of high-quality grains, and driving improvement in yield, quality, and other crop traits.
Footnotes
* Crops requiring a recommending committee fall under Part I of Schedule III of the Seeds Regulations, under authority of the Seeds Act.
** Crops that do not require recommendation by a committee fall under Part III of Schedule III of the Seeds Regulations, under the authority of the Seeds Act.