b'STATUS AFGHANISTANDespite the severe social and political unrest that constrain agri-culture in Afghanistan, many farmers are growing high-yielding, disease resistant varieties developed through international, sci-ence-based breeding and made available to farmers as part of partnerships with national wheat experts and seed producers.These and other findings have emerged from the first-ever large-scale use of DNA fingerprinting to assess Afghanistan farmers adoption of improved wheat varieties, which are replac-ing less productive local varieties and landraces, according to a paper published in the science journal BMC Genomics. The study is part of an activity supported between 2003 and 2018 by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, through which the Agricultural Research Institute of Afghanistan and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) introduced, tested, and released improved wheat varieties.As part of our study, we established a reference library of released varieties, elite breeding lines, and Afghan wheat lan-draces, confirming the genetic diversity of the landraces and their value as a genetic resource, said Susanne Dreisigacker, wheat molecular breeder at CIMMYT and lead author of the new paper.We then compared wheat collected on farmers fields with the reference library. Of the 560 wheat samples collected in 4 provinces during 2015-16, farmers misidentified more than 40%, saying they were of a different variety from that which our DNA analyses later identified.Wheat is the most important staple crop in Afghanistanmore than 20 million of the countrys rural inhabitants depend on it. (Source: CIMMYT)STATUS URUGUAYSince 2014, the INASE (National Seed Institute, Uruguay) have been incorporating mandatory certification in some species of forage grasses with the aim of using only the best quality seed. So far, the species were incorporated into the certification scheme: Bromus catharticus (cebadilla), Dactylis glomerata (blue grass, ball grass), Lolium spp. (annual ryegrass, perennial ryegrass and hybrid ryegrass), Avena byzantina (yellow oats), Avena sativa (white oats), Avena strigosa (black oats) and Festuca arundinacea (fescue). The project that eliminates the commercial seed class for this group of species was adopted smoothly and determined by the great capacity and professionalism of the national seed sector. The next species that are added are: Sorghum sudanense (sudangrass) from June 1, 2020 and Setaria italica (Moha) from June 1, 2021. Those seed companies that carry out the sowing of Sudangrs and Moha seedlings destined for commercialization at national level, must start the process of certified seed produc-tion from the moment of selection of the farm (through INASE or accredited companies for that end). (Source: INASE)EUROPEAN-SEED.COMIEUROPEAN SEED I 67'