Harmonization of rules for VCU testing of maize in comparable agro ecological regions
Authors: van Waes 
Published: July 2008

In the European Community, a new variety of an agricultural crop must submit official trials for DUS (Distinctness, Uniformity, Stability) and VCU (Value for Cultivation and Use) before commercialisation. The guidelines for those tests are summarized in the European directive 70/457/EU (1970), revised in 2002 (2002/53/EU). The result of the VCU-tests is the admission on the national variety catalogue of new varieties, which are better than the best existing ones. Better varieties in the market can increase the income of the farmers. The progress in breeding can be measured by comparison the level of recent with older (10 - 15 years ago) varieties. Incorporation of new varieties in the culture plan is only justified if they are better than existing varieties and if they have no great weaknesses. Therefore the farmers need criteria for cultivation security and high return (output, yield). The two most important factors for cultivation security are resistance to lodging and to stalk rot. In addition earliness is another important factor for silage maize to attain a sufficient dry matter of the total plant and for corn maize to attain a low moisture content in the grains. Important factors for cost-effectiveness are total dry matter yield and quality for silage and grain yield for corn maize. Until now each EU- country has a separate system for VCU testing. The aim of the VCU-research is to predict the agronomical and technological value of a new variety on a reliable way in comparison with standard varieties. For this purpose there is the necessity for a high number of field trials and analyses; this implicates high national experimentation costs. But the costs for experimentation are only a small fraction of the benefits for the farmers. International cooperation for VCU-testing will become necessary to reduce the costs for the national variety testing systems. However the aim of the research must still be to predict the agronomical value of a new variety with the same reliability as at national level. For the future variety testing should be realized on the basis of comparable agro-ecological regions with the same crop husbandry and use of the crop. These regions must be clearly defined so that the release of varieties corresponds to the high demands for harvest security and good conservation possibilities of the harvested material. The most important criteria for evaluation should be: harvest security, disease resistance, yield and quality. The basis for a good success for international cooperation is a good knowledge of the national systems: searching for similarities and finding a solution for differences. Once a variety on a catalogue in one European country, the breeding company tries to sell the variety in the whole agro-ecological for which the variety is adapted. Therefore it is important that in the surrounding zones, where the variety is tested, the same criteria are valid. In this presentation we will give a proposal for harmonization and international cooperation for controlling the VCU- value of new maize varieties.