Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 16:02:24 From: SCHLAUER@chemie.uni-wuerzburg.de To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg819$foo@default> Subject: Re: Cultivar Stuff
Dear Richard,
> There has been some discussion about creating "cultivar groups" without
> naming a parent...
You mean a member (of the cultivar-group), not a parent (of a hybrid).
> ... as a cultivar. If I am following this discussion, it
> sounds like this could be functionally achieved within the established
> rules by naming a cultivar (with parents of parentage X and Y) and
> specifying that this cultivar can reproduced either vegetatively (from
> any plant of that cultivar) or sexually by crossing parents X and Y.
Correct. But the sexual addition is not even necessary (see below).
> While this would not actually define an official "cultivar group" it
> would give a name to a group of plants with the same parentage.
Once it is named, the first cultivar of a given parentage can become
the first member of a new cultivar-group that can be established
officially. The cultivar and its group may be established at the same
time. NB: The ICBN defines cultivar-groups as assemblages of "two or
more" named cultivars. There is, however, no rule that precludes
establishment of cultivar-groups if only one established cultivar to
be included exists at the time when the cultivar-group is designated.
In other words, the rule that defines cultivar-groups (Art.4.1.ICNCP)
does not begin with "In order to be established...". Note 3. to
Art.4. tells us: "An assemblage which is derived from a cross in which
both parents are known, and which has one or more shared characters
that makes recognition of value, may also be designated as a cultivar-
group." Please note that there is no statement on the size of the
"assemblage" in this note.
In order to meet the formal requirements, at least one further
cultivar must be added to a "monotypic" cultivar-group. Otherwise,
said cultivar-group would be quite useless, anyway.
> If there are exceptional specimens of this cultivar, then they
> could be given a different cultivar name and specified that this new
> cultivar can only be reproduced vegetatively. Is this correct?
Yes.
> Would there be undesirable ramifications to this?
Not necessarily undesirable. I would, however, propose a slightly
different procedure. It would be possible (but not mandatory) to
describe as the first cultivar of a given parentage (and of a new
cultivar-group that may be co-extensive with the hybrid) a plant that
does have some characteristics to distinguish it from other plants of
the same parentage. This would allow the registrant to give a more
precise definition of the particular cultivar's characteristics so
future cultivars in the same cultivar-group can be defined more
easily, and the (preferred but again not mandatory) criterion of
vegetative reproduction could be applied. In all other respects, the
strategy you proposed can be recommended.
Kind regards
Jan
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