EFSA guidance for plant materials, cultivation conditions, crop harvest, and storage for comparative compositional analysis
| Materials | •GM plant/conventional counterpart/conventional comparators |
| - The choice of the non-GM reference should be appropriate for the chosen sites | |
| •GM plants carrying specific traits require appropriate treatment comparisons | |
| - Herbicide-tolerant GM plants: the GM plants exposed to the intended herbicide; the comparator and the GM plants treated with conventional herbicide management | |
| Location | •A minimum of 8 sites |
| •At least 6 conventional comparators | |
| •Sites chosen to be representative of the range of likely receiving environments where the plant will be grown | |
| •Information on important parameters, such as soil type; herbicide use; climatic, cultivation, and environmental conditions; harvest time; and conditions during storage of harvested materials | |
| Field trial design | |
| •A minimum of 4 replicates at one site (4 blocks) | |
| •A minimum of 3 conventional comparators per replicate | |
| •In trials with 2 conventional comparators – 6 replicates | |
| •In trials with 1 conventional comparator – 8 replicates | |
| •Completely randomized block design, balanced incomplete block design | |
| Year | •A single year or spread over multiple years |
| Practice | •Local farming practices |
| Sampling and storage | |
| •The raw agricultural commodity such as grain and forage | |
| •Sampling according to appropriate quality standards | |
| •Information on harvesting time, sample transportation, sample storage conditions |
