Milestones throughout the establishment and development of the Russian body for testing and protection of selection achievements

1924. Establishment of the Soviet Russia State Variety Testing Network (SVTN) with 23 variety plots for testing 5 major crops.

1926. Transferring of the SVTN to the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Varieties.

Agro-Industrial Body Expansion of the SVTN onto 168 common, 20 rice and 15 vegetable variety plots.

1937. Reorganization of the SVTN into a single all-Union system as a part of the State Commission for Varietal Testing of Grain Crops and a network of variety testing plots.

1937-1938. Allocation of 1,055 state-owned plots and establishment of State Commissions for testing of potato, vegetable, melon, fruit berry and grape varieties, and also foundation of grain compliance laboratory.

1953. Transformation of the State Commission for Variety Testing of Grains, Oilseeds and Herbs into the State Commission for Variety Testing of Crops (Gossortcommission) reinforced with the State Network for Variety Testing of fodder, vegetables, melons and potatoes, and also the State Committee for Variety Testing cotton. The Gossortcommission disposes 1,668 state-owned plots, of which 1261 assigned for cereals, oilseeds and herbs, 256 – for industrial crops and 151 – for vegetables, melons, potatoes and fodder root crops.

1973. Equation of new plant varieties with inventions in terms of legal protection.

1980. Adoption of the «Regulation on the legal protection of new plant varieties in the USSR», providing that the author breeders invoke a right for royalties within 5 years from the start of use of the subject variety.

1981. Adoption of the «Regulation on State Testing and Regionalization of Crop Varieties» on mandatory state testing of all new varieties and hybrids of plants of domestic and foreign selection before their use in agricultural production with further cultivation in certain soil and climatic zones.

1989. Transferring of 63 inspectorates, 7 variety testing stations and 15 state sections under the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR derecognized by the State Agro-Industrial Body of the USSR; establishment of the All-Russian State Commission for Varietal Testing of Agricultural Crops under the State Agro-Industrial Body of the RSFSR.

1993. Adoption of the Law of the Russian Federation “On Selection Achievements” with subsequent reestablishment of the entire national selection achievements testing system.

1994. Foundation of the State Commission of the Russian Federation for the Testing and Protection of Selection Achievements (Gossortcommission) in its current form.