The Forest Reproductive Material (Great Britain) Regulations 2002

Requirements for comparative testing of reproductive material

3.—(a) Sampling of the reproductive material

(i) The sample of the reproductive material for comparative testing must be truly representative of the reproductive material derived from the basic material to be approved.

(ii) Sexually produced reproductive material for comparative testing shall be:

• harvested by methods that ensure that the samples obtained are representative;

• harvested in years of good flowering and good fruit or seed production, and

• in any event may be produced by artificial pollination.

(b) Standards

(i) The performance of standards used for comparative purposes in comparative tests should if possible have been known in the region in which the test is to be carried out over a sufficiently long period to enable their use as a standard, namely, they shall represent, in principle, material that has been shown useful for forestry at the time that the test starts, and in ecological conditions for which it is proposed to certify the material. They should come as far as possible from stands selected according to the criteria in Schedule 3 or from basic material approved by the Commissioners or another official body for production of tested material.

(ii) For comparative testing of artificial hybrids, both parent species shall, if it is practically possible, be included among the standards.

(iii) Whenever possible several standards are to be used. When necessary and justified, standards may be replaced by the most suitable of the material under test or the mean of the components of the test.

(iv) The same standards will be used in all tests over as wide a range of site conditions as possible.

(c) Interpretation

(i) A statistically significant superiority as compared with the standards must be demonstrated for at least one important character.

(ii) The applicant under regulation 7(7) shall clearly report in his application for approval if there are any characters of economic or environmental importance which show significantly inferior results to the standards; and the Commissioners must be satisfied before approving the basic material that the effect of these inferior qualities is compensated for by other favourable characters.