Seed ID Technology Helps Better Protect IPRs Of Owners

A new independently developed method to identify seed varieties at the molecular level is being applied to help detect counterfeits and quickly clarify the intellectual property owners of imported germ plasm resources, experts said.

The method, called MNP marker, can obtain identifications for crop varieties with much higher efficiency and 99.98 percent accuracy, said Peng Hai, head of the research team at Jianghan University in Wuhan, Hubei province.

Using the method, a person can identify 1,033 markers of rice cultivars. The efficiency is a thousand times higher than traditional identification methods, Peng told Chutian Metropolis Daily, a news portal based in Hubei.

Last year, Yazhou Bay Seed Laboratory in Sanya, Hainan province, introduced the MNP marker method developed by Peng's team.