EPPO database on PP1 Standards

Database content

The EPPO Standards for the efficacy evaluation of plant protection products (PP1) describe the conduct of trials carried out to assess the efficacy of plant protection products against specific pests. They are addressed to all institutions, official registration authorities, public institutes or private firms carrying out such trials. In Europe, they now constitute a reference in Commission Regulation (EU) No 284/2013 , implementing Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council regarding the data requirements for plant protection products.

Today, more than 300 Standards have been approved by EPPO and are included in this database (paper brochures are no longer available). Standards in the series PP1 are divided into General and Specific Standards:

• General Standards cover all general aspects of efficacy evaluation to help countries in understanding and fulfilling their obligations in the registration of plant protection products (e.g. advice on design, conduct, reporting and analysis of trials, phytotoxicity, effects on succeeding crops or adjacent crops, analysis of resistance risk, minor uses, and climatic considerations). All General Standards are freely available in the EPPO database on PP1 Standards.

• Specific Standards cover one type of plant protection product (fungicide/bactericide, insecticide/acaricides, herbicide, plant growth regulator, molluscicides, nematicides, rodenticide, etc.). Fungicides, insecticides and rodenticides are generally tested against a single pest on a single crop, but occasionally against a group of pests or on several similar crops. Herbicide standards generally concern the control of all weeds in a given crop, while standards on plant growth regulators concern one or several uses of these products on a crop or group of crops. Standards on side-effects concern evaluation of the effects of products on beneficial species. Each standard gives details for individual field trials. Indications are given on experimental conditions (trial conditions, design and lay-out of the trial etc.), applications of treatments (type, time and frequency of application etc.), mode of assessment, recording and measurement (type, time and frequency of assessment, effects on the crop etc.), reporting of results.

   LAST UPDATE

The database was last updated in November 2024 with the new and revised Standards that were approved by EPPO Council in September 2024.

General Standards

• PP 1/333 (1) Adoption of Digital Technology for data generation for the efficacy evaluation of Plant Protection Products (NEW)
• PP 1/332 (1) Principles for recording yield data when evaluating the efficacy of fungicides and insecticides (NEW)
• PP 1/331 (1) Principles of efficacy extrapolations for major uses (NEW)

Specific Standards

• PP 1/011 (4) Moths of grapevine (revision)
• PP 1/131 (4) Diaspididae scales on pome and stone fruits (revision)
• PP 1/334 (1) Evaluation of mating disruption techniques against Lepidopteran pests in vegetable and ornamental crops under protected conditions (NEW)
• PP 1/335 (1) Seed wasps in almonds, pistachios and plums (NEW)
• PP 1/336 (1) Efficacy evaluation of herbicides used with mechanical weeders (NEW)

Extrapolation possibilities approved to accompany EPPO Standard PP 1/257 Efficacy and crop safety extrapolations for minor uses are available on the EPPO Database on PPP Data Extrapolation

Brief history of the development of series PP1 EPPO Standards

In 1977, EPPO began publishing Guidelines for the efficacy evaluation of plant protection products. These were originally referred to as ‘Guidelines for the biological evaluation of pesticides’, but in line with the FAO Guidelines, the term 'efficacy evaluation' is now preferred to 'biological evaluation'.  Furthermore, in 1988, EPPO decided to use the term 'plant protection products' to 'pesticides'. The title of the PP1 series accordingly changed in 1989.
The main purpose of the Guidelines was to harmonize the process of efficacy evaluation within the registration procedure of EPPO member countries by describing how field trials should be conducted in order to test the efficacy of plant protection products. The EPPO Council recommends to its Member Governments that plant protection products registered for use in their countries should be tested for efficacy in order that such products (as potentially harmful chemicals) should not be used unless there is a positive benefit in terms of the control of plant pests or other plant protection purposes. The Guidelines are the regional Standards recommended by the Council of EPPO for this evaluation. They are thus directed at the registration authority of each country which may either use the Guidelines directly to perform their own product testing, or indicate to the applicant the methods that must be applied to achieve registration. An important secondary goal is the possibility that efficacy data generated in one country using the EPPO methods may be acceptable for the registration purposes in other countries.
The General Guidelines of the FAO concerning 'Efficacy Data for the Registration of Pesticides for Plant Protection' (FAO, 2006) are considered by the EPPO Working Party on Plant Protection Products as the basic background document for the format of the EPPO Guidelines. The FAO Guidelines were produced by the FAO Panel of Experts on Pesticides Specifications, Registration Requirements and Application Standards, and include details on their purpose within countries, and on the exchange of efficacy data between countries. In general, each EPPO Guideline gives the minimum requirements for a field trial on a specific crop-pest combination, though many Guidelines cover groups of pests and/or groups of crops if these share common characteristics relevant to efficacy testing. In addition to these specific crop/pest Guidelines, the series of Guidelines also includes a number of General Guidelines covering topics of common relevance to efficacy testing (i.e. phytotoxicity assessment, design and analysis of trials, conduct and reporting of trials, and assessing effects on succeeding crops). Also in the series are a number of Guidelines covering testing methods for evaluating the effects of plant protection products on honey bees and other beneficial organisms that may be employed in integrated pest management programmes (i.e. Encarsia formosa, Trichogramma cacoeciae, Phytoseiulus persimilis).
The Guidelines first appeared as numbered sets of leaflets in separate English and French versions but since 1984, they have been published bilingually in Bulletin OEPP/EPPO Bulletin. The concept of numbered sets of Guidelines was discontinued in 1988 and individually numbered Guidelines were thereafter published in Bulletin OEPP/EPPO Bulletin as and when they were completed; these latter Guidelines also appeared as off-printed leaflets to be added to the previous sets. They were later re-classified as a single set of EPPO Regional Standards. The present numbering system retains the original sequence number and now also indicates that each is an EPPO Standard on Plant Protection Products (PP) in series no. 1, Standards on efficacy evaluation (e.g. PP 1/25).

In 1997, after more than 20 years of work on the preparation of these Standards, EPPO decided that they should be gathered together and published in one complete set (of four volumes). In addition, this publication provided the opportunity to revise the older Standards in order to bring them all to the same modern format. This revision did not change any of the technical details, but harmonized aspects of format in the sections of text common to all Standards. In 2004, a 2nd edition (in five volumes) was published and included in addition several new Standards of the type 'General Standards for efficacy evaluation of plant protection products'. Paper brochures containing Standards approved during the year were published as updates to this new edition in the period 2004-2007.

From 2008, it was decided that Standards should be available from the EPPO website in a searchable database and that the paper brochures should be discontinued. In January 2018 a new version of the database has been released.
The new version includes a brand new lay-out and improved functionalities to help users consult and retrieve the EPPO PP1 Standards and better adapt the system to different levels of services.
The programme of development and revision of the Standards continues within the EPPO technical bodies concerned, and the new and revised Standards produced continue to be published in Bulletin OEPP/EPPO Bulletin and on this website.