Challenges and Opportunities for Chinese Agriculture by Wensheng Chen

Author:Wensheng Chen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811535369
Publisher: Springer Singapore

5.2.2 Variety Testing and Evaluation System

The variety testing and evaluation system should change the current, unsteady system which is characterized as “semi-official, semi-civilian”, and construct a comprehensive evaluation system that includes variety testing and evaluation organizations, standards, and procedures.42 According to the provincial agro-ecological regionalization and arrangements for agricultural breeding and distribution, variety testing and evaluation institution is composed of the agricultural administrative department, variety management department, teaching and scientific research department and the key original breeding farms (plants), and a special office responsible for daily works of variety testing and evaluation. According to the actual situation of regional agricultural production, the provincial-level administrative department responsible for agricultural variety management formulates the evaluation standards, which are a series of technical regulations for the scientific evaluation of the safety and use value of agricultural product varieties in production. In order to avoid social risks brought by genetically modified farm products, genetically modified detection techniques should be included in the technical regulations. The variety testing and evaluation procedures can be divided into the regional identification testing phase and the production identification testing phase. Based on the natural conditions such as soil and topography, the regional identification testing phase divides a region into different ecological zones and selects several representative testing points in each ecological zone to arrange the experiment. Its purpose is to evaluate the productivity, adaptability, stability, and quality of the experimental variety, and carry out preliminary identification of a suitable planting range of the variety. The production identification testing phase selects good strains. Based on the conditions close to field production and technical measures adopted in the production, seeds will be planted in different representative locations, and experiments will be conducted on the production potential and resistance of the experimental variety. The purpose of this phase is to determine whether to continue to generalize the variety or not. The workflow is: variety survey → data analysis summary → evaluation → announcement.43

Variety survey: This is the basic work in the variety evaluation process. The experimental varieties planted in different ecological zones will be tracked and investigated, and thereby characteristics, productivity, adaptability, stability, and disease resistance of experimental varieties in different ecological zones and environmental conditions can be determined and properly catalogued.

Experimental data analysis summary: Establishing a variety testing database, based on which the trial data reported by testing points will be summarized, testing results reviewed, year-to-year comparisons conducted, and targeted advice to the characteristics of experimental varieties in agricultural production proposed.

Comprehensive evaluation: According to the results of the analysis summary, the variety testing and evaluation office will organize relevant experts from agricultural administrative departments, teaching, scientific research, promotion, production, management, and application to comment. Moreover, the office may invite representatives from farming communities to participate if necessary. The discussion focuses on the following issues: the mutual effects of experimental varieties and the environment; the stability of the experimental varieties; and redefining appropriate production areas of the variety. If there is serious degradation of species or insurmountable shortcomings in the use of

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