June 13th-17th, the 54th Technical Working Group for Ornamental Plants and Forest Trees (TWO) of International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) meeting was held online by the German New Plant Variety Protection Agency and the office of UPOV.

There were 88 people from 27 countries and international organizations such as China, Germany, France, New Zealand, Italy, Brazil, UK, Australia attending the meeting. Among 88 people, there were 25 UPOV members, 78 experts, 1 observer (Thailand), 2 from CIOPORA, 7 from UPOV headquarters. A total of 18 experts from 12 institutes, including Research Institute of Forestry of CAF and Xi'an Botanical Garden of Shaanxi Province, attended the meeting.

The meeting discussed the technical documents and information documents of UPOV related Test Guide Procedure documents (TGP) and gave special reports about 18 topics such as variety description information and databases, disease resistance in ornamental crops, molecular techniques and international cooperation in examination.

The meeting discussed 9 test guidelines. Dutch experts revised 2 test guidelines,  Hippeastrum and Latouchea. Japanese experts revised 2 test guidelines, Anthurium and Oxypetalum coeruleum. EU experts revised 2 test guidelines, Lavender and Euphorbia pulcherrima. Chinese experts lead the preparation of test guideline of Magonolia. French expert revised test guideline of Weigela. German experts revised test guideline of Callunavulgaris. Among them, three guidelines, including Anthurium, Callunavulgaris and Latouchea, were discussed by the Technical Working Group and then approved and finally submitted to the Technical Committee. Three additional test guidelines will be discussed in 2023, namely Ginkgo biloba (new), Nelumbo and Leucanthemum, of which Ginkgo and Nelumbo will be led by Chinese experts.

Experts from Xi'an Botanical Garden of Shaanxi Province, as the chief experts of drafting the new test guideline of UPOV Magonolia, discussed the third draft of the Magonolia test guideline, and responded to 45 modification suggestions (16 technical suggestions and 29 format suggestions) proposed by experts from four UPOV members including France and the UK. (Zhang Chuanhong / Research Institute of Forestry)