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April 2020 Plant Variety Protection Board Meeting Minutes

Teleconference-Washington, DC - April 30, 2020 1-2 pm

1:00 pm Introduction and Opening Remarks by Ruihong Guo, Ph.D., Science & Technology 

Program Deputy Administrator. Welcome to the board members and roll call.

• Participants from USDA: Ruihong Guo and Jeff Haynes

• Participating PVP Board Members: John Beuttenmuller, Brent Burchett, Eloy Corona,

Shannon Douglass, John Duesing, Josh Freeman, John Heaton, Kelly Keithly, Heidi

Nebel, Wendall Shauman and Albert Tsui

• PVP Board Members unable to participate Charles Brown, Patrick Kole, Stevan Madjarac,

James Sutton and Kathy White

• Participants from industry: Abigail Struxness

1:05 pm Introduction and program update by Jeff Haynes, Acting Commissioner of the Plant 

Variety Protection Office (PVPO). The PVPO consists of nine staff members, with 

seven examiners, a program analyst, and Acting Commissioner.

The PVPO examination staff has experience and expertise in biology, plant 

breeding, molecular biology, biochemistry and plant genetics. Three staff members 

hold master’s degrees with undergraduate degrees in biology. Three hold 

bachelor’s degrees in biology and one with an associate degree in biology. The 

PVPO staff is well rounded and qualified.

Operations of the program are continuing with little disruption. All staff are working 

remotely full-time. Application receipt, processing and examinations continue as 

they have before the pandemic. Hardcopy applications, documents and payments 

are still received as normal at the D.C. office and mail is checked at least once per 

week and processed.

Germplasm deposits were on hold at the time of the meeting, but the germplasm 

repository in Fort Collins, Colorado, has resumed acceptance of seed and tuber 

variety deposits by PVPO applicants. Under the new amended PVP regulations, 

asexually reproduced varieties were granted a 3-year germplasm delay waiver to 

give time to determine feasibility of long-term storage of these varieties. Hemp 

variety deposits have been delayed until the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) 

is completely prepared to receive these varieties.

Plant Variety Protection Office

STOP 0274 - Room 4512-S

1400 Independence Avenue, SW.

Washington, D.C. 20250
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The Plant Variety Protection (PVP) Act was amended under the 2018 Farm Bill to 

add asexual and hemp varieties to the program. The PVP regulations were revised 

to include these new variety types and published on January 6th of this year. The 

office now accepts new varieties that are asexually propagated, tuber propagated 

and asexually reproduced including hemp varieties. Since January 6th the program 

has received four new asexually reproduced varieties including two blackberry 

varieties, one hemp variety and one raspberry variety.

After the revised PVP regulations were published the PVPO received suggestions 

and requests for more than 30 asexually reproduced crop forms. The objective 

description of the variety form, or Exhibit C, is unique for each crop kind. The office 

has been working continually to create and publish these forms in fillable Portable 

Document File (PDF) format and to make them available from the ePVP System. 

The office has created and published 16 of the fillable and ePVP system forms with 

the remainder of them to be completed by June 30th of this year. The PVPO will 

continue to identify new crops of interest and develop the Exhibit C forms. Crop 

forms completed so far include apple, azalea, blackberry, calibrachoa, coreopsis, 

gomphrena, hemp, hornbeam, lemon, mandarin, orange, nightshade, raspberry, 

rose, sage and tillia. All new forms follow The International Union for the Protection 

of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) test guideline table of characteristics.

The electronic Plant Variety Protection (ePVP) system is available from the PVPO 

website and is a tool for customers to submit, track and pay for applications. The 

system receives more than 30% of new applications including all hemp seed and 

vegetative varieties. The program has more than 120 registered users with 

accounts on the ePVP system. Software release 5 was completed in November of 

2019 and included enhancements such as volume upload of corn applications, 

searches for locating applications and status codes and several internal software 

upgrades to improve examination efficiency by the PVPO staff.

The next software release will be version 6 to include the ability to respond to 

requests for information, increased integration with the UPOV system, better 

electronic application files that mirror the PDF forms, additional report options for 

users, and the ability to submit reports from other UPOV countries as attachments. 

The goal is to continue making improvements to the system to make it easier for 

customers to use and navigate.

1:40 pm Board comments and discussion. The PVPO appreciated the PVP Board members 

for their thoughtful and helpful recommendations from the last board meeting in 

2019. The program increased involvement with international associations and 

meetings. PVPO conducted two webinars to international associations that 

provided a comprehensive overview of program policies and processes and shared 

the plan to implement asexually reproduced varieties. The office also held two 

webinars that focused on domestic customers to provide detailed information on 

the addition of the new variety types.
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The office has been and will continue participating in all UPOV technical working 

group meetings and will provide thoughtful input and feedback on crops that are 

actively examined. The program increased collaboration with the Canadian Plant 

Breeder’s Rights Office and the European Union (EU), especially for asexually 

reproduced varieties. A good example of our cooperation with the EU is the lettuce 

project completed with the Netherlands which successfully reduced the number of 

grow-out trials required for lettuce applications to the US. This was a major 

achievement by both programs and has reduced costs to customers.

PVPO has been working with the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) and 

its project team to gain an understanding of essentially derived varieties and 

develop a plan to actively contribute to the UPOV explanatory notes revision 

process. The program appreciates the importance of the issue for seed industries 

and will continue to coordinate and represent effectively.

Ruihong Guo and Jeff Haynes visited the Bigelow Laboratory in Maine to asses the 

facility and determine its capacity to receive and store germplasm samples. The 

laboratory has experience with a number of asexually reproduced varieties and 

plans to research the feasibility of other varieties in the next three years. The 

program plans to research and assess other World Intellectual Property 

Organization (WIPO) approved repositories in the US. These are the Fort Collins 

ARS facility in Fort Collins, Colorado, and the American Type Culture Collection 

(ATCC) in Manassas, Virginia. The goal is to develop and provide germplasm 

deposit resource list for applicants, before the requirement becomes effective in 

January 2023.

Comments were received from the PVP Board members regarding the current 

working relationship with the EU, program finances, the use of ATCC for 

germplasm deposits, the PVP Board nomination process and timeline, onsite DUS 

examinations by the PVPO and an update on the number of hemp applications 

received by the program.

The working relationship with the EU has improved by more interaction with UPOV 

by attending the technical working group meetings, the joint lettuce project with the 

Netherlands, and providing webinars on the US implementation of asexually 

reproduced varieties.

As stated previously, the PVPO is researching the WIPO approved germplasm 

repositories in the US and will provide a deposit resource list for applicants before 

the requirement of asexually reproduced variety deposits become effective in 

January 2023. The three repositories that are being researched are Bigelow 

Laboratory in Maine, ARS in Colorado, and ATCC in Virginia.

The PVP Board nomination process is ongoing for reconstituting the board later 

this year. The nominees have been vetted and the board package has been 

assembled to be submitted to the Secretary of Agriculture for review and 

selections.
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The PVPO is working on a project plan to pilot on-site DUS examinations on 

domestic asexually reproduced and select seed propagated varieties. The program 

will work with one or more customers to pilot on-site DUS examinations of these 

varieties in the near future. The goal is to produce DUS reports that will be 

accepted by other countries to reduce the need for additional DUS trials.

PVPO has received a total of six seed propagated and one asexually reproduced 

hemp varieties since April 24, 2019. Three of the hemp varieties have been 

approved for protection and will be issued certificates of protection. The other four 

hemp varieties are under examination. 

The program thanks the PVP Board for their two years of service to the office, the 

Department and the public. The thoughtful and useful feedback was used to refine 

and improve operations. This concludes the current PVP Board terms. The PVPO 

looks forward to working with the next PVP Board to continue the collaborative 

interaction with the program stakeholders.

2:00 pm Adjourn