Ministry and Industry have been working hard over the past several months to complete the Chief Forester's (CF) Standards for Seed Use by the end of April 2004. This would have permitted the standards to come into effect on September 1, 2004 (after the required 4 month advertising period) prior to sowing requests being submitted this fall. This ambitious timeline was established in recognition of the difficulty of making complex systems changes part-way through the sowing request business cycle. However, due to protracted discussions with industry on several policy issues (now complete) and a number of small but still outstanding technical issues, this target date was not met.

In consideration of the time still required to address outstanding technical issues and systems requirements, and to avoid potential confusion by bringing the standards into effect during the middle of the sowing request season, the target date for standards implementation has been moved ahead to April 2005. To meet this new target, the CF Standards will be completed and advertised on or before December 16, 2004. This delay will also afford the ministry more time to prepare associated training and extension materials, and to deliver them at a time when field staff are available - between January and March 2005.

This delay should not represent an unmanageable risk to the ministry or licensees as the majority, if not all, of the sowing requests this fall will be for planting Code (e.g. Forest Development Plan) blocks. The standards will also come into effect prior to any substantive planting of Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA) (e.g. Forest Stewardship Plan). In the event that there are any seed registration or sowing requests for FRPA blocks this fall, or if any FRPA blocks are planted this winter/early spring, the CF Standards can include transition provisions to permit the use of seed if it is registered, stored, selected and transferred in accordance with the Forest Practices Code regulations/guidelines. Persons should therefore continue to register, store, select and transfer seed in accordance with current policies during this interim period. See http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hti/treeseed/regs.htm for details.

Further information regarding the CF Standards, including Q's and A's related to Code transition issues, and will be posted on this site in the near future.

If you should have any questions regarding these matters, please submit them to Brian Barber, Technical Advisor, Tree Improvement Branch at email: brian.barber@gov4.gov.bc.ca. - or post them on the FRPA Q & A Website at:

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/pscripts/pab/fordisc/view_discussion.asp?TopicID=47