The Plant and Animal Genome XIX Conference, in San Diego on 15-19 January 2011, will have a workshop on Genomics of Genebanks. Any of our readers planning to go?
Gap-filling may be harder than we thought
Future PGRFA collections will focus on filling gaps in existing collections, collection of certain regional, minor and subsistence crops and collection from particular countries where collection has not taken place or been very limited.
That’s from the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (GPA). In fact, “gap-filling” is often mentioned as a way to be more strategic and cost-efficient in germplasm collecting. This approach relies on knowing where a crop (or, more correctly, landraces of a crop) is grown, and comparing that with the distribution of germplasm accessions in genebanks (which could in fact be done in various different ways, depending on how you define “gap”, but forget that for a minute).
We all know about the problems associated with data on germplasm accessions (lack or inaccuracy of georeferences in passport data, for example). But in fact there are issues with the crop distribution data too, as we’ve recently discussed here and here. This shows the range of answers you get when you ask the seemingly simple question: where do bananas grow in Africa? Click on the image to see it better, or go to the previous posts.
So, is “gap-filling” a forlorn hope, at least at the continental and global levels? Looking forward to your thoughts…
Nibbles: Pavlovsk, Pavlovsk, Food security, Photography, Satoyama, Toxins, Aussie genebanks
- Legal niceties may help save Pavlovsk Experiment Station …
- … which says its cherries are doing just fine, thank you. Jeremy hard at work.
- Ecosystem Services and Food Security. One for later.
- Kew’s Garden Photographer competition closes soon. Surprise everyone, submit something edible.
- Satoyama Initiative explained.
- On top of everything else, climate change may lead to higher toxin levels in crops.
- Latest on the restructuring of Australia’s genebanks.
The magic number is 5000
How many times have we heard the (para-) phrase: “It’s simply impractical to bring populations of critically endangered species up into the thousands”?
Well, my friends, if you’re not talking thousands, you’re wasting everyone’s time and money. You are essentially managing for extinction.
Ouch.
Nibbes: Opium, Crop Wild Relatives, Coconuts, Multicropping, Plant Health, Genebank portal
- Sustainable alternative to opium. Still waiting for my man.
- “Crop Wild Relative community calls for united global efforts“. Good to know.
- Small-scale coconut growers to benefit from Kasaragod Declaration?
- Australian farmer doubles number of species, doubles yield shock.
- Plant health clinics take expertise where it is needed most. Now for the mobile edition …
- Crowdsourcing improvements to a portal to genetic information. Now there’s an idea.