The Clean Plant Center Northwest is a National Clean Plant Network center for the production of virus-tested Grapevine varieties for the protection of U.S agriculture from known and potential pests and diseases. Every year the CPCNW receives material from domestic growers, nurseries and plant breeders, and conducts diagnostics for viruses and virus-like organisms, performs virus elimination to remove pathogens detected, and propagates the clean, G1-level plants in our screenhouse-based foundation collection to prevent reinfection.
Submission Process
The submission process for growers, nurseries, and plant breeders wishing to submit new varieties into the clean plant program for the production of virus-tested, G1-level plants is as follows:
Introduction Requests
The CPCNW receives requests for new material for the year’s intake from September 1st through to January 31st. To make a requests, please complete the variety introduction agreement, and submit it via email to cpcnw@wsu.edu.
After February 1st the CPCNW will compile the received request forms and present the requests to the Foundation Block Advisory Group at the winter meeting. The committee will assign spaces to companies based on availability.
If there are more requests than available spaces, submissions will be assigned space based on the following ranking:
1. Public, non-patented varieties
2. Proprietary varieties from U.S. state or federal breeding programs
3. Proprietary varieties submitted by a U.S. registered company or entity
If there are additional spaces available for that year’s intake, customers will be invited to submit additional requests.
Sending Propagative Material to the CPCNW
In February the CPCNW will notify the customers that their submissions have been accepted, and begin the process of receiving propagative material for those varieties to begin the clean plant process. Once notified that their submissions have been accepted, customers may ship their material to the CPCNW. The CPCNW will receive dormant budwood, green cuttings (in spring only), or tissue cultured explants from U.S. domestic sources. For dormant budwood or green cuttings, please send four (4) cuttings of at least 10-12 inches in length with 4-5 buds each. For Tissue cultured plants, please send a minimum of four (4) tissue culture vials. Each shipment must include the variety introduction packing list, and if necessary, a phytosanitary certificate from the state of origin. Material should be shipped via overnight courier to: Clean Plant Center Northwest, 24105 N. Bunn Rd., Prosser, WA 99350.
Receipt by the CPCNW
After propagative material has been received by the CPCNW it will be inspected and the customer notified. If the material is in viable condition to proceed it will be propagated by rooting cuttings, or in the case of tissue cultured plants, subculturing into clean media. Once propagation is judged to be successful, at approximately 2-3 months after arrival and initiation, the customer will be invoiced and the clean plant process will commence.
Retention in the CPCNW Foundation Collection
Once the clean plant process is completed, and plants have been determined to be free of known and potential pathogens, the variety owner has the option of having the clean plants returned to them, or retaining them in the CPCNW foundation collection. Foundation varieties are held in contained conditions in screenhouses to prevent reinfection, and are tested on a rotational basis to ensure that the plants remain pathogen-free. This retention qualifies the plant as ‘G1’ and eligible for participation in a state-managed certification program; varieties returned to the owner do not. Public varieties are automatically entered into the foundation collection upon completion.
Fee Structure and Payment (all prices in USD)
The process of diagnosing and eliminating known and potential viral pathogens from plant material is expensive and time consuming, and while the CPCNW is supported in part by funding from the National Clean Plant Network (NCPN), fees are assessed on variety owners, on a per accession basis, to defray the costs of performing these activities. Given that NPCN funding is sourced from the U.S. Federal Government, via the Farm Bill, fees are assessed based on the nature of ownership of the varieties submitted. Current Fee Schedule.