National foreword

This British Standard is the UK implementation of EN 17702‑1:2024. It supersedes PD CEN/TS 17702‑1:2022, which is withdrawn.

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee W/-, Miscellaneous Standards.

A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to its committee manager.

Contractual and legal considerations

This publication has been prepared in good faith, however no representation, warranty, assurance or undertaking (express or implied) is or will be made, and no responsibility or liability is or will be accepted by BSI in relation to the adequacy, accuracy, completeness or reasonableness of this publication. All and any such responsibility and liability is expressly disclaimed to the full extent permitted by the law.

This publication is provided as is, and is to be used at the recipient’s own risk.

The recipient is advised to consider seeking professional guidance with respect to its use of this publication.

This publication is not intended to constitute a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

This British Standard was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 30 November 2024.

This European Standard was approved by CEN on 26 August 2024.

CEN members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration. Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre or to any CEN member.

This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by translation under the responsibility of a CEN member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre has the same status as the official versions.

CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and United Kingdom.

European foreword

This document (EN 17702‑1:2024) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 455 “Plant biostimulants”, the secretariat of which is held by AFNOR.

This European Standard shall be given the status of a national standard, either by publication of an identical text or by endorsement, at the latest by May 2025, and conflicting national standards shall be withdrawn at the latest by May 2025.

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. CEN shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

This document supersedes CEN/TS 17702‑1:2022.

EN 17702‑1:2024 includes the following significant technical changes with respect to CEN/TS 17702‑1:2022:

Introduction, Scope, Terms and definitions, Figures, and Bibliography have been updated.

The EN 17702 series, Plant biostimulants — Sampling and sample preparation, consists of the following parts:

Part 1: Sampling;
Part 2: Sample preparation.

This document has been prepared under a standardization request addressed to CEN by the European Commission. The Standing Committee of the EFTA States subsequently approves these requests for its Member States.

Any feedback and questions on this document should be directed to the users’ national standards body. A complete listing of these bodies can be found on the CEN website.

According to the CEN-CENELEC Internal Regulations, the national standards organisations of the following countries are bound to implement this European Standard: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.

Introduction

The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) was requested by the European Commission (EC) to draft European Standards or European Standardization deliverables to support the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2019/1009 of 5 June 2019 laying down rules on the making available on the market of EU fertilising products (“FPR” or “Fertilising Products Regulation”).

This standardization request, presented as M/564 and relevant amendments, also contributes to the Communication on “Innovating for Sustainable Growth: A Bio economy for Europe”. The interest in plant biostimulants has increased significantly in Europe as a valuable tool to use in agriculture. Standardization was identified as having an important role in order to promote the use of biostimulants. The work of CEN/TC 455 seeks to improve the reliability of the supply chain, thereby improving the confidence of farmers, industry, and consumers in biostimulants, and will promote and support commercialisation of the European biostimulant industry.

This document covers the following aspects of sampling, derived from EN 1482‑1:2024 and documents indicated. This document is presented in a form adapted to the specificity of plant biostimulants. The titles of the standards are given in the Bibliography.

From a technical point of view, sampling is generally specified as the withdrawal operation, of the part of a “mass”, of such dimensions that the properties found in the sample taken, are, within the limits of statistical acceptability, the same as those of the mass of origin (representativeness of the sample). In other words, the ultimate purpose of sampling is to allow the collection of representative portions of plant biostimulants to be subject to analysis. Therefore, it fundamentally affects the significance and reliability of the analytical results themselves.

Figure 1 gives a schematic diagram of the sampling and sample preparation process.

1 Scope

This document specifies sampling plans and methods of representative sampling of plant biostimulants to obtain samples for physical, chemical and biological analysis.

It is applicable to the sampling of batches of plant biostimulants supplied or ready for supply to third parties, as such, or in smaller batches.

This document is applicable to the blends of fertilizing products where a blend is a mix of at least two of the following component EU fertilising products: Fertilizers/Liming Materials/Soil Improvers/Growing Media/Inhibitors/Plant Biostimulants, and where the following category Plant Biostimulants is the highest percentage in the blend by mass or volume, or in the case of liquid form by dry mass. If Plant Biostimulants is not the highest percentage in the blend, the European Standard for the highest percentage of the blend applies. In case a blend of fertilizing products is composed of components in equal quantity or in case the component EU fertilising products used for the blend have identical formulations 1 , the user decides which standard to apply.

This document is intended to be used by manufacturers, buyers and competent authorities to obtain samples prior to transport and supply it to a laboratory for testing.

2 Normative references

3 Terms and definitions

4 Sampling plans and quantitative data

4.1 Principle

4.2 Sampling plans

4.3 Quantitative data

5 Incremental sampling methods

5.1 General

5.2 Solid plant biostimulants in packages – Reduction method using a rotary mechanical sample divider

5.3 Solid plant biostimulants in packages – Reduction method using a riffle divider

5.4 Sampling of solid plant biostimulants in packages – using a spear

5.5 Sampling of solid plant biostimulants in packages – Manual method

5.6 Sampling of liquid plant biostimulants

6 Reduction of combined sample

6.1 General

6.2 Solid plant biostimulants

6.3 Liquid plant biostimulants

7 Division into final samples

8 Practical arrangements for final (laboratory) samples

8.1 General

8.2 Containers

8.3 Sealing of containers

8.4 Labelling of final samples

8.5 Dispatch of the final sample

8.6 Storage of final samples

9 Sampling report

9.1 General

9.2 Essential information

9.3 Additional information

Bibliography

BS EN 17702-1:2024

Plant biostimulants. Sampling and sample preparation - Sampling

Current

Published:

30 Jun 2025