An EPPO code, formerly known as a Bayer code, is an encoded identifier that is used by the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO), in a system designed to uniquely identify organisms – namely plants, pests and pathogens – that are important to agriculture and crop protection.
Although originally started by the Bayer Corporation, the official list of codes is now maintained by EPPO.
In total, there are over 93,500 species listed in the EPPO database, including:[1] Plants are identified by a five-letter code, other organisms by a six-letter one.
The unique and constant code for each organism provides a shorthand method of recording species.
The EPPO code avoids many of the problems caused by revisions to scientific names and taxonomy which often result in different synonyms being in use for the same species.