In this journal, Reyes Moratal, the manager of the Compañía de Variedades Vegetales Protegidas, tells us what is involved in managing a protected plant variety and how CVVP helps the plant breeders and licensees to carry out their work and improve their results.
1- What services does CVVP provide?
CVVP is a nonprofit business group that works with breeders and licensees to manage protected plant varieties, providing them with assistance and advice services that help them carry out their work and improve their results.
At CVVP we provide the holders of exploitation rights associated with plant varieties that are already protected or are in the process of adhering to this protection with the services required to manage and promote their plant varieties, putting our experience, our human and material resources at their disposal.
We currently manage famous plant varieties such as the Nadorcott late ripening mandarin and the Summer Prim extra-late ripening Fino lemon that was granted the protected plant variety right by the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) on the 6 th of April.
We offer every breeder and licensee a totally personalized and individualized service that is adapted to each of their particular needs.
2- What are the advantages for a plant breeder or a licensee if they rely on the CVVP to manage their plant variety?
When they entrust us with the management of their plant variety, the plant breeder or licensee can make the most of the experience and knowledge of a consolidated group in the sector, one that is a pioneer when it comes to managing plant varieties and it is constantly evolving.
Being a nonprofit economic interest group, we don’t raise the price of the services that we provide our partners with. This reduction in costs is a real advantage for the plant breeders and the licensees, especially during the first few years until they start making money and get back what they have invested.
3- How many plant varieties does the CVVP manage at the moment? What are the characteristics of each one?
The CVVP currently manages 5 well-known varieties such as the Nadorcott late ripening mandarin, the m7 variety, which is the top quality mutation of the mandarin Clementine x Murcott Leanri, the Summer Prim extra-late ripening Fino lemon and more recently the kiwi varieties Rossy, Sunxy01 and Sunxy02 that are marketed under the brand name Kibi.
All these varieties are top quality and have excellent characteristics.
Nadorcott was the first plant variety to be managed by CVVP and it is undoubtedly the late-ripening mandarin par excellence. Available from January to April, the Nadorcott is now highly regarded in the market thanks to its exceptional characteristics such as its shiny reddish orange colour, its oblate shape and its juice content, which is 60% higher than similar varieties.
Leanri is another mandarin with excellent qualities, it has proved to be very popular and there are high expectations for it among the European distribution chains, even though the plantations in Spain are still very young. It is different from the Nadorcott mandarin because it ripens about three weeks beforehand in January-February. It is a reddish orange colour; it has a rounded shape and very smooth peel.
Summer Prim is the extra-late ripening Fino lemon; it is a mutation of the Primofiori /Fino. It was granted the protected plant variety right by the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) on the 6 th of April. The quality of this bright yellow lemon is unbeatable. It is an extra-late ripening variety, so it prolongs the Fino lemon campaign in the commercial calendar right up to the spring-summer period and during the month of May its juice content is 50%.
As for the m7 it is an ultra-early mutation of the Navelina 7.5 and it ripens three to four weeks before the Navelina, so it has a long harvest period that lasts for 4 months.
More recently, the CVVP has opted for the kiwi with the three varieties of its new partner Fruit Growing Quality. Marketed under the brand name Kibi, it manages two yellow kiwi varieties called Sunxy01 and Sunxy02 and a red Rossy kiwi variety, which are from the Actinidia Chinensis family. These new varieties need around 350 or 400 chilling hours for a good flowering, so they have a great future ahead of them in the agriculture of the Spanish mainland.
4- What is involved in managing a protected plant variety? How does CVVP help?
Managing a protected plant variety involves a tremendous amount of administrative work. At CVVP we provide all kinds of services related to plant breeds, from the assistance and advice when registering the plant variety and obtaining permits for the farmers to controlling the delivery of the planting material from the nurseries to the farmers and the supervision of the authorized farms. Promoting the plant varieties, providing the farmers with technical assistance, setting up and coordinating tracking systems are other tasks involved in managing a protected plant variety that CVVP takes care of thanks to our human and material resources.
More recently we have updated our website clubvvp.com to provide all the operators of the varieties that we manage with an intuitive tool where they can find all the information required to carry out their work.
5- How does the CVVP prevent the exploitation of illegal plantations?
The fight against fraud and piracy is another essential task of CVVP to safeguard the protected plant varieties although nowadays there is a general respect in the sector for the existing protection system for plant varieties, which therefore promotes the development of new varieties.
