The Crop Science Society of America suggests that in order to adapt agriculture to climate change we will need to
Genotype the major crop germplasm collections to facilitate identification of gene treasures for breeding and genetics research and deployment of superior genes into adapted germplasm around the globe.
Which is all well and good, but it does rather assume that “the major crop collections” will be there to genotyped in the first place. ((It also assumes that Genebank Database Hell will freeze over, somehow, but that’s another story.))
‘Twas ever thus with genebanks. It’s just assumed that they will always be there, ready, willing and able to provide breeders and geneticists with the material they need, forever, no matter what. It’s really scary to realize that, actually, such an assumption is unjustified. Somebody should tell CSSA that.
Do you have an estimate for the proportion of global crop alleles that are already secured in genebanks (excluding epigenetics)?
Ahem. No. Your point?