France
March 4, 2025
The CTPS Maize and Sorghum Section met on Tuesday 21 January 2025 for its first meeting of the new CTPS term 2024-2029. It validated the composition of the commissions and expert groups involving some fifty people representing the sector.
After reviewing the growing and seed production season for maize and sorghum, the Section approved proposals for the registration of 100 new varieties of maize and 7 new varieties of sorghum on list A.
In the end, following publication of the decree of 10 February 2025, 58 new varieties of Maize were included in list A of the French Official Catalogue:
- 42 new varieties in the Grain section.
- 15 new varieties in the Forage section.
- 1 variety in the Forage section, mentioned as a variety grown at high density.
Variety results can be consulted on the Varmaïs website, under “France Registration Results“.
6 new grain sorghum varieties have been included in list A of the French Official Catalogue. The main characteristics of these new varieties are described by following the link: VSCU Sorghum 2025 results.
The Section was also informed of the changes made to the DUS maize examination protocol by the DUS expert group and approved the changes to the technical regulations for the examination of maize varieties with a view to their registration in the French Official Catalogue.
The protocol and technical regulations have been revised in response to the European Commission’s request to maintain the possibility of concluding on the DUS testing of a maize variety after one year of study when the varieties have been satisfactorily described and the criteria of distinctness, uniformity and stability have been verified and respected. GEVES conducts DUS maize trials simultaneously at three geographically distant locations with different soil and climate conditions, so that the growing cycles can be considered independent. Thus, all the varieties under study are systematically and at least planted in two locations considered as two growing cycles for each year of the study: Anjou (49) and Magneraud (17) or Magneraud (17) and St Martin de Hinx (40).
The Section was also informed of the work carried out in 2024 by each of the DUS and VSCU, maize and sorghum expert groups, as well as the projects defined for 2025. The Section was informed of the GEVES initiatives to optimise variety evaluation.
The Section approved the control variety tables for the VSCU testing of varieties registered in 2025 and the seed treatments. Forage maize varieties with S3 precocity will be studied in 2025 for the first time at the CTPS. A network of VSCU trials will be set up to evaluate the performance of these new varieties.
The Section also approved changes to the technical regulations for examining sorghum varieties with a view to their registration in France’s Official Catalogue. The 3 recognised categories are now: grain sorghum, single-crop forage sorghum and multi-crop forage sorghum. Single-crop forage sorghum varieties will no longer be categorised according to dry matter content or plant height. All varieties will be studied in a national trial network in conjunction with post-registration evaluation.
The Section was informed of the work of the CTPS Scientific Committee on the “Climate Change” referral.
Finally, the Section took note of regulatory news concerning the 2 draft European regulations currently under discussion under the new Polish Presidency:
- Draft EU regulation on plant reproductive material (MRV or PRM).
- Draft regulation on new genomic techniques (NGT).
Topics
Species
