CREATIVE BREEDING

Breeding of a new variety takes ten years, and the process follows a breeding program. First, seeds are obtained, that is, an appropriate selection is made of female and male forms, followed by crossbreeding. During the subsequent years, seeds are sown (app. 70 thousand annually), seedlings are obtained, and the breeding material (families) is selected on the field.

The main evaluation criteria are earliness, yield, tuber morphology, starch content, taste, suitability for processing, resistance to viruses, potato blight and other fungal and bacterial diseases. All families registered for registration experiments are resistant to wart and potato cyst nematodes. After seven years of selection, based on the results of our own and preliminary experiments, the selected families (approximately 10) are registered for registration experiments conducted by COBORU (Research Centre for

Cultivar Testing). After two years, based on the results and the opinion of the Registration Commission, the COBORU Director orders that a given variety be entered into the Variety Register.  Entering a given variety into the Polish Register in accordance with EU law results in automatic registration of the variety at the EU level.  The breeder decides on how the variety is to be protected by choosing either the EU or the national level.  Obtaining exclusive rights to a variety allows collection of royalties from seed plantations and farm-saved seed (FSS).