There’s a lengthy article in Portland Monthly on the National Clonal Germplasm Repository at Corvallis, a unit within the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA/ARS). It focuses on a couple of the people working there in particular, for example strawberry expert Kim Hummer:
Inside one of these greenhouses, diffused winter light streams through the glass ceiling, illuminating horticulturalist Kim Hummer and her colleagues as they hover over a small potted strawberry plant that, considering its history-steeped neighbors, appears undeserving of so much attention. Devoid of fruit, the plant’s heart-shaped leaves are edged brown, its runner pale red. It doesn’t look much different than any one of the other hundreds of strawberry plants crowding dozens of long tables. Yet Hummer’s voice brims with excitement. “This is a wild decaploid,” she says. “It’s very special.”
Want to know the species, which comes from the side of a volcano on Russia’s Iturup Island? Read the whole thing. There’s a lot, lot more.