Definitions
Article 3
For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions apply: (1) ‘forest reproductive material’ or ‘FRM’ means seed units, parts of plants and planting stock that belong to tree species listed in Annex I and their hybrids and are intended to be used for afforestation, reforestation, diversification in a forest plot and other tree planting and direct seeding, for one or more of the following purposes: (a) multifunctional forestry; (b) production of wood, biomaterials, biomass or other forest products; or (c) conservation of forest genetic resources; (2) ‘seed unit’ means cones, infructescences, fruits and seeds intended for the production of planting stock or for direct seeding; (3) ‘planting stock’ means any plant or part of a plant used in plant propagation and comprises plants raised from seed units, from parts of plants or from plants from natural regeneration; (4) ‘parts of plants’ means stem cuttings, with or without roots, leaf cuttings and root cuttings, explants or embryos used for micropropagation, buds, layers, roots, scions and any other parts of a plant used for the production of planting stock; (5) ‘afforestation’ means the establishment of forest through planting or deliberate seeding, including the planting or deliberate seeding of regionally adapted tree species, on land that was, until then, under a different land use and implies a transformation of land use from non-forest to forest; (6) ‘reforestation’ means the re-establishment of forest through planting, deliberate seeding, vegetative propagation or natural regeneration on land classified as forest; (7) ‘basic material’ means any of the following types of material as referred to in the table set out in Annex VI: seed source, stand, seed orchard, parents of a family, clone or clonal mixture; (8) ‘seed source’ means the trees within a defined area from which FRM is collected; (9) ‘stand’ means a delineated population of trees which is sufficiently uniform in composition; (10) ‘seed orchard’ means a plantation of selected trees where each individual tree is identified by a clone or family and that plantation is isolated or managed in order to avoid or reduce pollination from outside sources and managed to produce frequent, abundant and easily harvested crops of seed units; (11) ‘parents of a family’ means trees used as parents to obtain progeny by controlled or open pollination of one identified parent used as a female with the pollen of one parent (full sibling) or a number of identified or unidentified parents (half-sibling); (12) ‘clone’ means a single individual or group of individuals (ramets) derived originally from a single individual (ortet) by vegetative propagation, for example by cuttings, micropropagation, grafts, layers or divisions, or derived originally from cell lines; (13) ‘clonal mixture’ means a mixture of identified clones in defined proportions; (14) ‘unit of approval’ means the entire area of basic material or one or more individuals of basic material intended for the production of FRM that has been authorised by the competent authorities; (15) ‘lot’ means any of the following: a seed lot, a seed unit lot, a plant lot or a parts of plants lot; (16) ‘seed lot’ means a set of seeds collected from approved basic material and processed uniformly; (17) ‘plant lot’ means a set of plants that have been grown from a single seed lot or from vegetatively propagated planting stock which has been raised in a delineable area and processed uniformly; (18) ‘seed unit lot’ means a set of seed units collected from approved basic material and processed uniformly; (19) ‘parts of plants lot’ means a set of parts of plants collected and processed uniformly; (20) ‘lot code’ means the identification code of a lot; (21) ‘provenance’ means the name of the place in which any seed source or stand is growing; (22) ‘region of provenance’ means the area or group of areas subject to sufficiently uniform ecological conditions in which stands or seed sources showing similar phenotypic or genetic characteristics are found, taking into account, where appropriate, altitudinal boundaries; (23) ‘autochthonous seed source or stand’ means a seed source or stand which has been continuously and naturally regenerated or which has been artificially regenerated from FRM collected in the same seed source or stand or in other autochthonous seed sources or stands in close proximity to that seed source or stand; (24) ‘indigenous seed source or stand’ means a seed source or stand located in a specific region of provenance that is part of the natural distribution range of the species concerned, raised from seed or vegetatively propagated, the origin of which is situated within the same region of provenance; (25) ‘origin’ means the following: (a) for an autochthonous seed source or stand, the place in which the trees are growing; (b) for a non-autochthonous seed source or stand, the place from which the seed or plants were originally introduced; (c) for a seed orchard, the places where its components were originally located, such as their provenances, or other relevant geographical information; (d) for the parents of a family, the places where their components were originally located, such as their provenances or other relevant geographical information; (e) for a clone, the place where the ortet or cell line is or was initially located or selected; (f) for a clonal mixture, the places where the ortets or cell lines are or were initially located or selected; (26) ‘location of the basic material’ means the geographical area or geographical position or positions of the basic material, as appropriate for each category of FRM; (27) ‘foundation stock’ means a plant, group of plants, FRM, DNA stock or genetic information of the clone, or clones in case of clonal mixture, that serves as reference material for the verification of the identity of the clone or clones concerned; (28) ‘professional operator’ means any natural or legal person professionally in charge of the production or marketing, or both, of FRM; (29) ‘production’ means all stages in the generation of lots of FRM for marketing, including the harvesting, collection, storage, processing and distribution, and the dispatching during those stages, as well as the conversion of seed unit lots and parts of plants lots and the growing, multiplying, maintaining, storage and harvesting of plant lots; (30) ‘marketing’ means the following actions conducted by a professional operator in relation to FRM, whether free of charge or not: (a) selling, holding or offering for the purpose of sale or any other way of transferring, distributing or dispatching for the purpose of sale within the Union; or (b) the import into the Union; (31) ‘competent authority’ means: (a) a central or regional authority of a Member State responsible for the organisation of official controls, the registration of basic material, the certification of FRM, the registration of professional operators and other official activities concerning the production and marketing of FRM; (b) any other authority to which the responsibilities referred to in point (a) have been conferred in accordance with Union law; (c) where applicable, the authority of a third country that corresponds to the authority referred to in point (a); (32) ‘delegated body’ means a separate legal person to which the competent authority has delegated certain official control tasks or certain tasks related to other official activities; (33) ‘category’ means the classification of FRM as source-identified, selected, qualified or tested material; (34) ‘source-identified’ means a category of FRM derived from basic material consisting of either a seed source or a stand located within a single region of provenance and which meets the requirements set out in Annex II; (35) ‘selected’ means a category of FRM derived from basic material consisting of a stand located within a single region of provenance, which has been selected at the population level and which meets the requirements set out in Annex III; (36) ‘qualified’ means a category of FRM derived from basic material consisting of seed orchards, parents of a family, clones or clonal mixtures, the components of which have been selected at the individual level and which meets the requirements set out in Annex IV; (37) ‘tested’ means a category of FRM derived from basic material consisting of stands, seed orchards, parents of a family, clones or clonal mixtures, where the superiority of that FRM has been demonstrated by comparative testing or an estimate of the superiority of the FRM has been calculated on the basis of the genetic evaluation of the components of the basic material, and which meets the requirements set out in Annex V; (38) ‘official certification’ means both the procedure leading to the issuance, and the issuance itself, of either a master certificate or of an official label, in accordance with this Regulation; (39) ‘official controls’ means activities to verify compliance with this Regulation performed by the competent authorities responsible for the organisation of those activities or by the bodies to which or the natural persons to whom certain of those activities have been delegated; (40) ‘other official activities’ means activities concerning the approval of basic material and the production and marketing of FRM other than official controls, performed by the competent authorities or by the bodies to which or the natural persons to whom certain of those activities have been delegated; (41) ‘documentary check’ means the examination of master certificates and other documents; (42) ‘genetically modified organism’ means a genetically modified organism as defined in Article 2, point (2), of Directive 2001/18/EC, excluding organisms obtained through the techniques of genetic modification listed in Annex I B to that Directive; (43) ‘NGT plant’ means an NGT plant as defined in Article 3, point (9), of Regulation (EU) 2026/1388; (44) ‘deployment area’ means the area designated by the competent authorities in which FRM belonging to the ‘qualified’ and ‘tested’ categories is adapted to the climatic and ecological conditions of that area; (45) ‘FOREMATIS’ means the Forest Reproductive Material Information System of the Commission; (46) ‘natural regeneration’ means the renewal of the forest by natural processes, including natural seeding, sprouting, suckering or layering; (47) ‘quality pests’ means pests: (a) that are not Union quarantine pests, protected zone quarantine pests, or Union regulated non-quarantine pests within the meaning of Regulation (EU) 2016/2031, nor pests subject to the measures adopted pursuant to Article 30(1) of that Regulation; (b) that occur during FRM production or storage; and (c) the presence of which has an unacceptable adverse impact on the quality of the FRM, and an unacceptable economic impact as regards the use of that FRM in the Union.