Our colleagues Adrian Roberts and Tess Vernon participated in the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) Technical Working Party on Testing Methods and Techniques, hosted by Defra at Jesus College, Cambridge from 2nd - 5th June 2026. The international delegates meet annually to discuss new developments in methodology for assessing Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability (DUS) of plant varieties. Topics covered included technical guidance as well as statistical analysis methods, molecular techniques and phenotyping and image analysis tools. 

Tess Vernon presented an update on software developments for DUS analysis within the UK.

As part of the working party, delegates attended a visit to Niab which included an AI workshop, a field visit and talks and demonstrations on current work and research in gene transformation, data science and phenotyping tools, pathology, seed certification, the OSTS and projects ongoing within the glasshouses.