question about OSSI

[Nicolas]

If one derivates a new cultivar from an OSSI pledged cultivar, it must diffuse it under OSSI pledge, but does this new cultivar and pledge require to be reviewed by the commitee before diffusion ?

[William Schlegel]

That's a good question. I would think you could sell or give away the material outside of the OSSI system with only acknowledging it's OSSI origins. Then if you wanted to register it as a new OSSI variety you would need to have it reviewed.

You could be in the situation where all parental material was OSSI. I would think review would then be swift.

You could also in up in some weird situations by combining parent materials from different legal backgrounds.

I hope to incorporate some TGRC tomato material into my tomato project. TGRC material comes with an agreement similar to OSSI. If I cross TGRC and OSSI tomatoes the resulting material should be both right? I think the TGRC material transfer agreement basically says you have to acknowledge TGRC origins in the material and any resulting publications. That helps them get and keep funding to maintain tomato germplasm.

However other weird situations are possible especially in the future.

How long for instance before expired or abandoned GMO patented material gets combined with OSSI material?

Or other types of legal statuses get in weird combinations?

What about feral material? Kind of like how feral Canola recombined different GMO strains? Feral material of many species has the potential to recombine material of many different legal statuses.

[Carol Deppe]

I'll answer on behalf of OSSI as board member as well as Chair of the OSSI Variety Review Committee.

A variety that is derived in whole or part from OSSI-Pledged material is automatically OSSI-Pledged whether it goes through the OSSI variety review process or not.  So if you distribute such derived material, go ahead and put the Pledge on it.

However, we strongly encourage breeders to run derived varieties through the review process so they are registered and can be listed as OSSI varieties on the website. But if you are distributing ossi-derived breeding material to a few friends as a one-shot deal, you probably would achieve nothing by registering it. If, on the other hand, you are going to be selling the derivative, it's better to register it, for promo reasons among others.