I have to say that IPK’s an incredibly important resource for plant breeders. Without gene banks like Gatersleben we’d have lost so much more of our crop diversity. They deserve wider recognition for the work they do.
Oh wow. Unsolicited praise for a genebank. Whatever next. It comes from Graham. D. Jenkins-Belohorska, on the Facebook group Plant Breeding for Permaculture. With all due respect, I suspect its audience is limited. So I’m reproducing the whole exchange here. I really hope they won’t mind. It gets more specific, so it’s worth reading in full. Click on the image to enbiggen, and squint. Just in case this link doesn’t work. And kudos to IPK.
But do you have a genebank you’d like to thank (or complain about, what the hell)? Let us know here.
I agree with Graham D. about the IPK but of course several genebank around the world are of interest for preserving biodiversity and share it with local comunity and future generations…..;-)
For example?
SPC’s tissue culture lab in Fiji – the Centre of Pacific Crops and Trees – conserves a world collection of taro (Colocasia). Last year, CePaCT distributed 6250 taro as tissue cultures in 6 months to more than 20 countries around the world. This included partners under the EU-supported International Network for Edible Aroids, and some other countries that needed germplasm because of the catastrophic effect of taro leaf blight disease. This was a great achievement, especially considering the paper work involved in complying with international standards of intellectual property and plant health, that each partner received 50 varieties, and there was need for speed to keep contamination rates low. Well done SPC!