Category: Genebanks

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Genebanks from lab to field

Today provides a great opportunity to show the great range of activities that the international genebanks of the CGIAR centres are engaged in.

First, look at IRRI. Their new Genetic Resources Seed Processing Laboratory (GRSPL) was just opened by the German Ambassador to the Philippines.

https://twitter.com/RiceResearch/status/720193902225920001

The $2-million facility was funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Since 1974, Germany’s support to research and development at IRRI stands at $62 million, most of that coming from the BMZ.

The new facility will increase the processing and storage capacity of the International Rice Genebank by 40 percent.

With German support, IRRI has also improved the conservation of rice genetic resources through new accessions as well as research to improve seed longevity in storage, streamline the seed management process and enhance data management.

The GRSPL now upgrades the seed processing function of IRRI’s T.T. Chang Genetic Resources Center which handles the conservation of global rice diversity through the International Rice Genebank and provides germplasm for rice research and breeding programs at IRRI and rice research institutes worldwide.

The genebank is nearing its maximum capacity, said Ruaraidh Sackville Hamilton, Head of the International Rice Genebank. “Our next step is to try to increase capacity.”

And at the other end of the pipeline, have a look at what Ruaraidh’s colleague at CIMMYT, Denise Costich, has just posted on Facebook.

How a video leads to a collaboration… Some of you might remember that I posted a video earlier this year that was made for the Global Crop Diversity Trust “Crops In Color” campaign. I was interviewed, as was a gentleman named Misael Gonzalez Avila, who is the leader of a farmers’ group in the town of Temoaya, not far from Toluca, where we have been regenerating our highland maize collection for the past two years. I had never seen him before I watched the video for the first time. His group works with another project at CIMMYT, called “MasAgro,” and when the photographer was visiting, he was taken out to photograph the group by one of the assistants of that project, who I also did not know. Once I saw Misael and heard him speak, I commented to one of my assistants: “You know, we really should work with this guy…” Well, long story short, now we are! Today we planted a trial with Misael, and his group, including the 12 most popular materials that were selected by the farmers who attended our field day in 2014, which we incremented in 2015. They looked great in the station, so now we need to see how they behave in farmers’ fields… Keep you posted on that later this year… A few pictures of our day in Temoaya…

maize

And of course, there’s everything in between too.

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Nibbles: Sapote taste, Coffee breeding, Genes to ecosystems, Medicinal trifecta, Ganja, Aboriginal fire, Lupins, Endophytes, Oil algae, Schultes maps, Yeast diversity, Bees & diversity, CSA

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Another threatened Russian fruit collection

…a commission ordered that the land of the academy be transitioned for the destruction of educational buildings and living, agricultural fields, in order to establish the new development and construction of multi-level residential buildings.

Sound familiar? No, not Pavlovsk, but another famous Russian agricultural icon, Moscow’s Timiryazev Agricultural Academy.

…part of the land, Michurin’s orchard, was founded in 1939 and includes an extensive collection of fruit and berry biodiversity. The orchard is dedicated to the protection of unique plant varieties, which could not be transplanted without causing a dramatic loss. Nearly 200 apple varieties and 167 varieties of pears still flourish on this parcel. Apart from the historic and educational value of the land, it is also a national heritage, as granted by President Medvedev in 2008.

There’s a petition. Remember: pressure worked with Pavlovsk.

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Brainfood: African greens, Latin American pigs, Japanese fruits, Cassava selection, Sunflower breeding, Angolan vegetables, Californian backyard maize, Mesoamerican priorities, Genetic stocks

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Amaranth across the Rio Grande

A quick follow up to my very telegraphic postscript to a post a few days back. I was listening to an AgTalks session on “forgotten food crops” from IFAD, and I was quite surprised to hear from Mary M. Delano Frier, one of the excellent speakers, that when she started her work on amaranth in Mexico, she had to get material from the USDA genebank.

So I contacted David Brenner, who curates the amaranth collection at the Plant Introduction Station at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. This is what he said:

We send substantial amaranth germplasm to Mexico and we have large holdings of Mexican amaranths that we distribute worldwide. There is at least one other organization (Puente) in Mexico with a parallel mission to Mary Delano Frier’s. They are both solving issues of food sovereignty and poverty by restoring amaranth to poor villages. We have sent germplasm to both. There are also organizations in East Africa with a similar mission, although grain amaranths are newer in Africa. Mary Delano Frier attends some of the Amaranth Institute meetings where I have met her. Her brother John Delano Frier has published research on amaranth done in Mexico with our germplasm. Amaranth enthusiasts from these and other perspectives get to together at the Amaranth Institute meetings which are built on contacts I get from distributing germplasm. The Amaranth Institute folks are very encouraging to me as a curator. I think these days amaranth projects in Mexico can start up with germplasm from older project and from the INIFAP genebank under Dr. Espitia, which is investing in amaranth. There are also skilled agronomists to advise growers in Mexico.

A great example of international collaboration. No walls or other impediments to exchange of germplasm between the US and Mexico.