We have received this contribution from Theo van Hintum and Liesbeth de Groot of the Centre for Genetic Resources, The Netherlands (CGN). We very much welcome such submissions. Many thanks to Theo and Liesbeth.
CGN strives to promote the use of its plant genebank collections by collaborating with private breeding companies in the search for useful traits. It usually selects material, preferably from its own collection, and organises evaluation trials in consultation with, and funded by, these companies. In this context, CGN recently searched for additional material of a wild leek (Allium ampeloprasum), the most important member of the primary genepool of leek, in order to identify resistance against two fungal diseases, as well as insect tolerance. CGN only has nine accessions of this species, and for the evaluation we aimed at about twenty.
The search in EURISCO for A. ampeloprasum germplasm resulted in a list of 52 accessions from 7 genebanks, and GRIN showed an additional 12 accessions from the USDA network. Most of the accessions of the USDA network came up as unavailable in GRIN; only 2 out of the 12 were available for distribution. In Europe, availability was even worse. The five collections holding more than two accessions were approached. Apart from the nine accessions from CGN itself, the other four collections, holding 40 accessions in total, could effectively provide CGN with only one accession. One collection did not respond to the email request despite repeated attempts, the others informed us that, due to the difficulty in regeneration of this species, no seed was available for distribution, one accession excepted.
The bottom line is that, apart from its own collection, from 52 reported and requested accessions in EURISCO and GRIN, only three were available for distribution. What does this mean for the overall availability of plant genetic resources from national collections. Are we maintaining a database of ‘Dead Souls’?
I felt I had to respond and share Theo’s and Liesbeth’s concerns. It might be possible to surmise that the probelm with lack of availability of seeds for wild leek is a ‘specific’ problem, and maybe something to do with restricted seed viability because of the vegetative propagation of the species. However, I have had similar problems in the past in obtaining seeds for various brassicas from European genebanks other than of course CGN and Warwick HRI. I am also aware that companies may have had problems in obtaining seed of wild beet. I wonder how extensive this problem actually is?
I suspect it was an intention of the authors to generate some controversy but perhaps bilateral dialogue with the genebanks concerned would be more constructive than a blog entry wondering about ‘dead souls’. I cannot obviously comment on the situation in other genebanks but below I give my views.
Warwick GRU was one of the genebanks approached, and it is true to say that seed availability is an issue for this material, one reason for which is that plants can sometimes produce bulbils rather than seed (and for a seed bank, this is a problem).
In my response to CGN I indicated that while we didn’t have enough to distribute for evaluation purposes, we could send out seed if users wished to regenerate it themselves but I didn’t receive a reply. We have supplied CGN with material far in excess of our normal distribution quantities for their evaluation work with private companies in the past so there is no question of ‘dead souls’ here.
A word on avilability of material in EURISCO… This year, I included all material in the public collections in EURISCO, rather than just the immediately available material, with the intention of assessing interest in the material requiring regeneration and allowing us to priortitise this aspect of collection management. I am pleased that there is interest in the wild Allium ampeloprasum accessions — noted for future plans!
I must admit that I don’t read your blog often enough, but I do always find it enlightening. I did read today about the lack of published onion seed accessions’ availability. Just last week I was pondering the same issue with Triticum timopheevi, where there are 590 published accessions recognized. T. timopheevi is important for wheat researchers because it’s cytoplasm is a source of cytoplasmic male sterility for commercial hybrids. Issues that we need to be concerned about might include:
– of the 590 accessions, how many are duplicates, or trace back to the same sources?
– of the 590 accessions, how many are actually available?
– the need to avoid genetic uniformity when deploying CMS
– the lack (?) of an opportunity to actively collect more materials, given a potential range of eastern Turkey, northern Iraq and western Iran.
I was wondering if you had ever come across pre-breeding within a crop wild relative species? Not the intercrossing of CWRs with cultivated species, but (for this example) the intercrossing of T. timopheevi accessions to reveal enhanced levels of additive genetic variability, perhaps selecting materials for specific cytoplasmically controlled traits? Thus, from a very limited pool of X number of accessions, Y more accessions could be derived increasing the amounts of materials available to users.
Cheers, Tom
Thomas S. Payne, Ph.D.
Head, Wheat Collections
Wellhausen Anderson Plant Genetic Resource Building
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
The ‘leek case’ was the trigger. I know EURISCO aims at providing access to information about germplasm, but does not imply anything regarding availability. And I know that A. ampeloprasum is a difficult crop to regenerate. I also know that most of the genebanks we approached are high quality genebanks, by any standard. But I also think its getting time the (European?) genebank community starts addressing a number of issues.
How many of the one point four million accessions in Europe actually exist, how many are alive, how many of these are available for distribution (sufficient seed), and how many of these are actually distributed on request? And what should we aim at in this regards? Is it sufficient that material is frozen in genebanks maintaining its option value, or do we want to provide access to the user community, and who is included in this community (anyone/only serious professional user/ nly the colleagues in our network or institute)?
Initiatives like AEGIS or the Multi-Lateral System of the ITPGRFA can only be a success if these questions, and some more, are answered objectively. The recent paper by Åsmund Bjørnstad and co-workers (“Facilitated access” to plant genetic resources: does it work? GRACE 60:1959-1965) was a wake-up call, and an indicator of some of the difficulties genebanks apparently face. We should organise ourselves, identify the difficulties and try to take them away — as a community. We can’t do that by pretending everything is perfect. Let’s get some clothes for the emperor!
Cheers,
Theo
It is not a surprise to hear about difficulties in obtaining access to germplasm. I am also witness of various cases. The reasons for non availability can be several. Some of them have been expressed in this blog. To me this discussion reconfirms the value of the AEGIS initiative (http://www.aegis.cgiar.org/), since the creation of the European Collection is based on firm commitment by the holding genebanks and by the respective national authorities that the accessions included in the Collection will be: 1) conserved at agreed level of quality; 2) made available under the terms and conditions of the Treaty, independently whether they are Annex I or not; 3) Safety duplicated.
The European Collection is growing slowly, which is in part an indication of the difficulties met by some countries/institutions to formally guarantee the above-mentioned commitments for a specific list of their accessions. I am however confident that the list will grow. Certainly if dedicated regional funds could be devoted to improve regeneration, quality standard and safety duplication of the emerging European Collection, the process might be faster. For the moment this is not the case and we will have to cope with the different pace of the various countries involved.