Abstract: Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata) is a globally important perennial forage grass. The objectives of this study were to optimize the guidelines and formulate the standards for distinctness, uniformity and stability (DUS) tests of orchardgrass to fit Chinese conditions. Thirty DUS characters from 9 varieties were utilized for DUS testing over two consecutive years. The results indicated that quality characteristics were consistent over both years apart from spindle base branch number. The expression of 7 pseudo-qualitative characteristics was also consistent. There were significant differences (P<0.01) among quantity characteristics especially plant height, second leaf ligule width and green yield. The qualitative characteristics were affected by environment; the mean coefficient of variation for qualitative characteristics ranged from 26.3% (‘Grasslands Wana’, 2013) to 48.2% (‘01472’, 2014). The uniformity of quality characteristics and pseudo-qualitative characteristics is higher than the uniformity of quantity characteristics. In general, ‘Baoxing’, ‘Gulin’ and ‘Cambria’ could be used as example varieties because of their lower coefficient of variation and more stable qualitative characteristics.