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Plant Physiology 149:148-151 (2009) © 2009 American Society of Plant Biologists Cereal Germplasm Resources1United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service-Soybean/Maize Germplasm, Pathology and Genetics Research Unit; Maize Genetics Cooperation Stock Center; and Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801–4730
The role of cereal germplasm banks is to collect, maintain, preserve, and distribute seeds representing the genetic diversity of crop species. While germplasm resources have traditionally been used in breeding efforts to improve a crop plant, they have also proved useful in both applied and basic research efforts to give insight into the biology of a crop plant (Harlan, 1975
Seed collection and exchange began in prehistoric times as agriculture developed and spread. Early historical examples were found from Egypt and Babylon (Hyland, 1977
Vavilov first called attention to the potential of crop relatives as a source of novel trait variation for crop improvement (Vavilov, 1926
The introduction of potentially useful plant species and crop varieties into the United States dates back to the early 19th century when embassies were asked to collect and send these materials to the United States. A more organized effort was initiated when the Section of Seed and Plant Introduction was formed in 1898 within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). However, no provisions were made to store these materials adequately and most of these initial collections were lost over the years (Wilson et al., 1985
Researchers working with maize (Zea mays) established a tradition of sharing resources and tools to further fundamental research efforts in this model biological organism (Freeling and Walbot, 1994
Subsequently, the four original Regional Plant Introduction Stations were established under the Research and Marketing Act of 1946. This was the forerunner of the USDA National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS; Table I ). The North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station at Ames, Iowa (Table III), which was the first station established, began operation in 1948 (Wilson et al., 1985  ; White et al., 1989).
Also following World War II, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations became the main organization promoting the conservation of plant genetic resources. Its Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR; Table I) established the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR) in 1973 (Sprague, 1980 ). Since it began, IBPGR has worked to establish a global network of germplasm banks and has supported and stimulated the collection germplasm samples (Plucknett et al., 1987). IBPGR has also provided training, specialized equipment for storage and documentation, and advice. Today, more than 100 germplasm banks are operating in the world; many of these are located in developing countries (Tables I–III
). By contrast, when IBPGR was established in 1974, only about six countries had the capability to store seeds for long periods (Plucknett and Horne, 1992).
General germplasm is maintained to preserve natural genetic diversity. These accessions include inbred lines, land races, open pollinated varieties, wild relatives, cultivars, and other breeding stocks. The primary importance of these germplasm accessions is that they carry undefined variation that is proving to be a valuable resource for breeders and research scientists.
Other germplasm centers concentrate on specialty germplasm such as genetic stocks (Sachs, 2009
Efforts are presently being made to exploit germplasm bank genetic resources with genomics-driven plant breeding methods such as allele mining and association genetics. This combines a comparative description of molecular polymorphisms and phenotypic variation, and the study of statistical associations and involves population structure analysis (de Vicente et al., 2005
Germplasm of cereal crops is stored in two types of collections: working collections and preservation centers. Working collections are mainly of immediate interest to plant breeders and genetics researchers. Storage conditions of seeds are kept near freezing and low humidity. Cereal seeds maintained this way can be expected to remain viable for 10 years or longer. Longer term storage of cereal seeds involves keeping them at a temperature range of –10°C to –20°C. Seeds are carefully dried and sealed in bottles, or vacuum packed in aluminum foil envelopes or cans.
Materials to be preserved under long-term storage (e.g. for backup purposes) are placed under cryogenic conditions. The National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=54-02-05-00) is a USDA/ARS facility located in Fort Collins, Colorado. Originally designated the National Seed Storage Laboratory, it was built in 1958 to consolidate backups for the plant collections in the NPGS into a single facility that uses state-of-the-art preservation practices. The use of liquid nitrogen (cryogenic storage) to store seeds at the National Seed Storage Laboratory was introduced in 1977 and became a routine practice by 1990 (Walters et al., 2005
While the mission of most germplasm banks is to make germplasm available to all bona fide basic and applied researchers, regardless of political or institutional affiliation, there may be some restrictions. While the NPGS and CGIAR centers provide germplasm free of charge, this may not be the case for other centers. The NPGS germplasm banks do not have any material transfer agreement requirements (all genetic resources available are considered to be in the public domain), but other germplasm centers do have material transfer agreement requirements. The recently adopted International Treaty of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture endorses the principle of benefit sharing and provides mechanisms to use royalties to support germplasm collections and research (Cooper, 2002 When requesting seeds from another country, import permits and phytosanitary certificates may be required. For U.S. requests from other countries, one should check the requirements from the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (http://www.aphis.usda.gov/). From other countries, the local equivalent agency should be contacted. To obtain noncommercially approved transgenic research material for research purposes, within the United States, one must send a movement and release notification letter to Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (http://www.aphis.usda.gov/biotechnology/brs_main.shtml). Most other countries do not have any additional rules regulating the movement of transgenic seeds, but have stricter regulations for growing this material. One should contact the appropriate government agency of their country before requesting transgenic germplasm.
A list of active collections for cereal germplasm is provided in Tables I to III . Additional information about cereal germplasm resources is provided by the Web sites at http://gramene.org and http://wheat.pw.usda.gov/GG2/germplasm.shtml. Received September 2, 2008; accepted October 21, 2008; published January 7, 2009.
1 This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (CRIS project no. 3611–21000–022–00).  The author responsible for the distribution of materials integral to the findings presented in this article in accordance with the policy described in the Instructions for Authors (www.plantphysiol.org) is: Martin M. Sachs (msachs{at}uiuc.edu). www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.108.129205
Cooper DH (2002) The international treaty on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. Rev Eur Community Int Environ Law 11: 1–16[CrossRef] Correa C (2006) Considerations on the standard material transfer agreement under the FAO treaty on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. J World Intellect Prop 9: 137–165[CrossRef] Damania AB (2008) History, achievements, and current status of genetic resources conservation. Agron J 100: 27–39 de Vicente MC, Glaszmann JC (2006) Molecular markers for allele mining. In Proceedings of a Workshop, 22–26 August, 2005. MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, India. International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, Rome, pp 1–85 de Vicente MC, Guzmán FA, Engels J, Ramanatha Rao V (2005) Genetic characterization and its use in decision making for the conservation of crop germplasm. In The Role of Biotechnology, Villa Gualino, Turin, Italy, 5–7, March, 2005. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, pp 121–128 Fowler C (2008) The Svalbard Seed Vault and crop security. Bioscience 58: 190–191[CrossRef][Web of Science] Freeling M, Walbot V (1994) The Maize Handbook. Springer, New York, pp 1–759 Harlan JR (1975) Our vanishing genetic resources. Science 188: 618–621[Web of Science] Hyland HL (1977) History of U.S. plant introduction. Environ Rev 2: 26–33[CrossRef] Johnson RC (2008) Gene banks pay big dividends to agriculture, the environment, and human welfare. PLoS Biol 6: e148[CrossRef][Medline] Kass LB, Bonneuil C, Coe EH Jr (2005) Cornfests, cornfabs and cooperation: the origins and beginnings of the Maize Genetics Cooperation News Letter. Genetics 169: 1787–1797 Neuffer MG, Coe EH, Wessler SR (1997) The Mutants of Maize. Cold Spring Harbor Press, New York, pp 468 Plucknett DL, Horne ME (1992) Conservation of genetic resources. Agric Ecosyst Environ 42: 75–92[CrossRef] Plucknett DL, Smith NJ, Williams JT, Anishetty NM (1987) Genebanks and the World's Food. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 247 Sachs MM (2009) Maize genetic resources. In AL Kriz, BA Larkins, eds, Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry. Molecular Genetic Approaches to Maize Improvement, Vol 63. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp 197–209 Sprague GF (1980) Germplasm resources of plants: their preservation and use. Annu Rev Phytopathol 18: 147–165[CrossRef][Web of Science] Tanksley SD, McCouch SR (1997) Seed banks and molecular maps: unlocking genetic potential from the wild. Science 277: 1063–1066 Varshney RK, Graner A, Sorrells ME (2005) Genomics-assisted breeding for crop improvement. Trends Plant Sci 10: 621–630[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline] Vavilov NI (1926) Studies on the origin of cultivated plants. Bulletin of Applied Botany 26: 1–248 Vavilov NI (1940) The new systematics of cultivated plants. In J Huxley, ed, The New Systematics. Clarendon, Oxford, pp 549–566 Walters C, Wheeler LM, Grotenhuis JM (2005) Longevity of seeds stored in a genebank: species characteristics. Seed Sci Res 15: 1–20[CrossRef] White GA, Shands HL, Lovell GR (1989) History and operation of the National Plant Germplasm System. Plant Breed Rev 7: 5–56 Wilson RL, Clark RL, Widrlechner MP (1985) A brief history of the North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station and a list of the genera maintained. Proc Iowa Acad Sci 92: 63–66 This article has been cited by other articles:
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