Category: Information

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A home for genebank training at last?

Long-time readers will know that I regularly try to roundup training opportunities in crop diversity conservation, basically because nobody else does it. Well, maybe I can stop doing that now.

Yes, it’s true, the Crop Trust has launched a Genebank Academy, which aggregates information on online training courses. Have they missed some? Let me know.

And completeness compels me to add that there is also a Landscape Academy. Though unfortunately none of the courses seem to feature genebanks. But then, I’m not sure that any of the genebank courses featured landscapes.

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Crowdsourcing crop diversity, and information

A couple of crowd-sourcing initiatives caught my eye.

First, the good people at the COUSIN project want to expand genebank collections of wild relatives of wheat, barley, lettuce, brassica, and peas in Europe. And they have a pretty good idea where the collecting needs to be done. Think you can help? Check out the call for proposals.

And from a bit further south comes a plea on LinkedIn from Chris Jones of the ILRI genebank. He needs help getting stuff out of the genebank rather than into it.

As part of the ‘low-methane forages’ project, funded by the Gates Foundation and the Bezos Earth Fund, we have been screening the methane emission intensity of a range of forage accessions, in vitro, from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) genebank. The aim is to screen approximately 10% of the accessions held in our genebank and, to date, we have assessed 155 herbaceous legumes towards this goal, including several of our lablab accessions. From these, we have identified two accessions of interest. The methane emission intensity of accession #14447 was 27.7 ml/g total digestible dry matter (TDDM), 43% lower than the highest ten legumes measured so far, and methane emission intensity of accession #14458 was 33.8 ml/g TDDM, 30% lower. So, assuming that similar differences in methane emission intensity are realised in vivo (and that is no guarantee), the preferred candidate seems obvious. However, in our field plots #14458 produced 60% more biomass than #14447, which was an ‘average’ yielder. This higher level of production should be attractive to farmers who currently struggle to incorporate much in the way of legumes in their feed rations. So, which one would you prioritise?

I’ve added the links to the Genesys entries for the accessions in questions for people who want a bit more data to base their decision on. You can provide your input on Chris’ post, or right here and I promise to pass it on.

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Another chance for Bambara groundnut

Yesterday’s Nibble on the annoyingly always-on-the-verge-of-breaking-through Bambara groundnut had me rummaging through the blog’s archives. Among dozens of references, I came across a post from almost 15 years ago that included some maps — of genebank accession localities and the distribution of the crop. On a whim, I downloaded the Genesys data and fed it into the maw of ChatGPT, asking it to identify gaps in the world’s ex situ holdings. For each of the top 10 priority collecting regions, I then asked for a best-bet locality for exploration. ChatGPT obliged with a KML file, which I then looked at in Google Earth, together with the accession localities.

This is the result.

And here’s close-up on West Africa, because that’s where accessions are densest, and the suggested “gaps” a little more difficult to understand.

Asked for a justification, this is what the LLM came up with.

Does it make any sense? Well, it’s not exactly where I would have plumped for, just eyeballing the data. But it is not complete nonsense. Maybe it was the prompt? Any ideas what that should look like to get the best results?

Not that any of this is going to help Bambara groundnut much, I suspect.

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Nibbles: Family farming, Banana diversity, Logotonu Waqainabete, ICARDA genebank women, SOTW3 in Africa

  1. “Our traditional crops are not just food. They are life. They are our ancestors’ legacy and our children’s inheritance.”
  2. “Banana diversity is not only a scientific or agricultural asset — it is the sector’s insurance for the future.”
  3. “Through my parents, I learned that agriculture doesn’t just feed people, it also makes the world more beautiful.”
  4. “Genebank work depends on accumulated knowledge. If that knowledge isn’t transferred, you don’t just lose experience, you introduce risk.”
  5. “Conserving and using Africa’s plant genetic resources is not a luxury. It is a necessity for resilient agrifood systems in a changing climate.”
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Genebank data at a crossroads

Is genebank data having a moment? Well, it’s a pretty big thing that the botanic gardens community have basically said that they need a Genesys too, and in a hugely co-authored “Perspective” article in Nature Plants to boot. 1

Here we have focused on the living collections data ecosystem, because many aspects to managing these collections are unique within the broader collections sector. But we can look to the more advanced and better-networked accession-level data systems of ex situ agricultural gene banks (for example Genesys), not only for inspiration but with a view to lessons learned, and ultimately as future partners in building an even broader integrated global system for ex situ conservation resources.

Hey, we’re just sitting here waiting for you to decide to join us.

And there’s other stuff going on too. The Australian Virtual Seed Bank Portal has had an update and looks just great, for example. And the Old Vine Registry‘s database has passed 4000 entries. Ok, that covers old vineyards rather than genebank collections, but same difference, don’t @ me. Anyway, would love to see it mashed up with the European Vitis Database one day.

But back to genebanks. People are even building interfaces to their data, to get cool visualizations. And they’re analyzing the data to get a handle on the composition of collections 2, to develop monitoring and evaluation frameworks 3, and to identify gaps and challenges 4. And yes, that includes challenges in data management itself.

Documentation and data management systems required more attention in all genebanks in the study, with no genebank having full passport and inventory data in a searchable data management system, although minimum passport data on 82% of accessions was publicly available in searchable databases, including WIEWS and Genesys. Good quality, well-managed and searchable data on genebank operations are important for accurate and timely decision-making. A common issue was a backlog of data entry, with eight of the genebanks in the study relying to some extent on data retained in paper copy, field books and data sheets. Searching for accession-level data is time-consuming, and paper data sheets may be lost or damaged. Data were also stored in Excel files, making it difficult to query, or genebanks had their own customized data management system that required external support to resolve problems or make improvements. Engels and Ebert (2024) recognized the weak information management systems and online accessibility of accession-level data in national genebanks as a challenge to rationalization, as well as to cost-efficient and effective conservation and use. Despite the increasing use of digital object identifiers for accessions to link accession-level data, the Third Report on the State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources concluded that progress in the area of documentation has been limited, and training is needed for data managers and genebank managers to adopt available improved data management systems (FAO 2025c).

So, we still have work to do. But imagine what we could achieve if we teamed up with the botanic gardens. And herbaria for that matter.