Plant gene bank collections - sources of variation in health substances

Gene banks and national plant genetic resources programmes have been established to conserve genetic resources of domesticated plants. Variation of the beneficial health substances found in plants is the result of growing conditions (environment) and genes directing the growth (genotype)

Ex Situ Conservation Of Holstein-Friesian Cattle - Comparing The Dutch, French And USA Germplasm Collections

The establishment of gene banks using cryopreservation to secure the genetic diversity of farm breeds have been widely assessed. France, the Netherlands and the USA were among the first countries to organize national cryobanks and these banks are now 10 to 20 years old. All three countries have started Holstein-Friesian (HF) collections to conserve as much genetic diversity as possible for this globally important breed. In order better understand the diversity captured in these collections, the genetic variability of HF collections within and between countries was assessed, and genetic variability of germplasm collections were compared with active bulls in each country. The overall aim of the project was to determine the breed’s security and to guide future collection activities

The Conservation of Global Crop Genetic Resources in the Face of Climate Change

Outlines discussions from a September 2007 conference on the impact of climate change on crop distributions, agricultural productivity, and the need for and constraints on managing crop genetic resources. Focuses on food security in South Asia and Africa

TB167: Management and Winter Hardiness of Hairy Vetch in Maine

The research presented here describes a set of three different experiments that sought to establish appropriate management practices for hairy vetch in Maine, and to determine whether variability for winter hardiness exists among germplasm available commercially or from gene banks. Specific objectives of the first experiment were to evaluate effects of planting date and companion crop on crop and weed dry weight and total above-ground N content, at two sites differing in drainage. In a second experiment, the winter hardiness of hairy vetch from six commercial sources and the effect of a rye companion crop on hardiness were evaluated. In a third experiment, 69 V. villosa accessions from three gene banks were evaluated for winter hardiness, vigor, flowering date, and seed production.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/aes_techbulletin/1043/thumbnail.jp

Towards Uniform Gene Bank Documentation In Europe – The Experience From The EFABISnet Project

In the EFABISnet project, a collaborative effort of EAAP, FAO and partners from 14 European countries, in cooperation with the European Regional Focal Point for Animal Genetic Resources (ERFP), national information systems for monitoring the animal genetic resources on breed level were established in Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Georgia, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, and United Kingdom. The network was soon extended beyond the project plans, with the establishment of EFABIS databases in Finland, Greece, and Hungary. The network was then complemented by a set of inventories of national gene bank collections to strengthen the documentation of ex situ conservation programmes. These documentation systems were established by the National Focal Points for management of farm animal genetic resources. Here we present the experience gained in establishment of these national inventories of gene banks and their relevance to the Strategic Priority Areas of the Global Plan of Action which could be useful for other areas in the world

Gene Banks Pay Big Dividends to Agriculture, the Environment, and Human Welfare

Plants are the foundation of human life. The Western Regional Plant Introduction Station is a vital link in a greater US and international system of gene banks providing plant genetic resources to improve agriculture and the environment

Participatory conservation: a means of encouraging community biodiversity

The conservation of natural resources and biodiversity is threatened by increasing habitat loss, the degradation of the environment and the introduction of modern crop varieties. Although local landraces and crop varieties are potential sources of valuable genes that could benefit the farming community, their conservation depends to a large extent on the personal motivation of farmers and the continuation of traditional farming methods. There is growing apprehension that many landraces and site-specific genetic resources could be lost. Trait expression in these genetic resources is highly dependent upon the local environment, and has evolved over a long period of time through traditional and cultural cropping practices. Such varieties should be conserved in situ preferably on-farm. Techniques for their conservation, seed maintenance and regeneration can be fine-tuned and efficiently applied if farmer knowledge is reinforced with formal theory. Increasingly attention is being focused on participatory conservation to provide a synergy between formal-sector and farmer approaches. This paper describes how landraces and local crop varieties could be conserved by the use of field gene banks and area gene banks linked to community gene banks, and through these, to a national gene bank. Improved breeding strategies, resulting from a farmer- formal sector synergy, offer more options for providing a secure and sustainable livelihood for the large numbers of poor farmers who at present receive little or no assistance from the formal sector

Molecular Genetic Diversity Study of Forest Coffee Tree (Coffea arabica L.) Populations in Ethiopia: Implications for Conservation and Breeding

Coffee provides one of the most widely drunk beverages in the world, and is a very important source of foreign exchange income for many countries. Coffea arabica, which contributes over 70 percent of the world's coffee productions, is characterized by a low genetic diversity, attributed to its allopolyploidy origin, reproductive biology and evolution. C. arabica has originated in the southwest rain forests of Ethiopia, where it is grown under four different systems, namely forest coffee, small holders coffee, semi plantation coffee and plantation coffee. Genetic diversity of the forest coffee (C. arabica) gene pool in Ethiopia is being lost at an alarming rate because of habitat destruction (deforestation), competition from other cash crops and replacement by invariable disease resistant coffee cultivars. This study focused on molecular genetic diversity study of forest coffee populations in Ethiopia using PCR based DNA markers such as random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), inverse sequence-tagged repeat (ISTR), inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR) and simple sequence repeat (SSR) or microsatellites. The objectives of the study are to estimate the extent and distribution of molecular genetic diversity of forest coffee and to design conservation strategies for it’s sustainable use in future coffee breeding. In this study, considerable samples of forest coffee collected from four coffee growing regions (provinces) of Ethiopia were analysed. The results indicate that moderate genetic diversity exists within and among few forest coffee populations, which need due attention from a conservation and breeding point of view. The cluster analysis revealed that most of the samples from the same region (province) were grouped together which could be attributed to presence of substantial gene flow between adjacent populations in each region in the form of young coffee plants through transplantation by man. In addition wild animals such as monkeys also play a significant role in coffee trees gene flow between adjacent populations. The overall variation of the forest coffee is found to reside in few populations from each region. Therefore, considering few populations from each region for either in situ or ex situ conservation may preserve most of the variation within the species. For instance, Welega-2, Ilubabor-2, Jima-2 and Bench Maji-2 populations should be given higher priority. In addition, some populations or genotypes have displayed unique amplification profiles particularly for RAPD and ISTR markers. Whether these unique bands are linked to any of the important agronomic traits and serve in marker assisted selections in future coffee breeding requires further investigations

SEARCHING A GENE BANK: THE CASE OF WHEAT

Using data on the distributions of disease and pest resistance among wheat varieties, this paper reports theoretical and empirical findings concerning the efficient management of a gene bank and the optimal size of a collection.Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,