You may remember a post a few weeks back on a new genebank being planned by the Turkish government, about which I had some questions. Well, Agriculture & Rural Affairs Minister Mehmet Mehdi Eker will kick off building work on July 30. ((Actually the article says June 30 but its use of the future tense makes me think that’s a typo.)) In a statement, the Ministry said:
…we need to assess the current situation in order to protect our biological diversity and genetic sources. There are about 10 thousand plant species and nearly 3 thousand endemic plant species in Turkey. Also, Turkey is considered a center to find genes of a number of plant species which are of great importance for biological researches. Therefore, we decided to establish a seed gene bank in Turkey. The bank will contain genes of 250 thousand plant species.
I suppose that means 250,000 accessions. It sounds to me like this genebank may concentrate on wild species, unlike the one in Izmir. But I’m not sure. Maybe someone out there will give us more details.