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Genebank management is a field in its own right; it is multifaceted, requiring a diverse set of skills and knowledge. Seed physiology is one area that is critical to the successful operation of seed genebanks, requiring understanding of seed quality during development and maturation, seed dormancy and germination, and seed longevity in storage of the target species. Careful management of the workflow between these activities, as seeds move from harvest to storage, and the recording and management of all relevant associated data, is key to ensuring the effective conservation of plant genetic resources. This review will discuss various aspects of seed physiology that genebank managers should be aware of, to ensure appropriate decisions are made about the handling and management of their seed collections.

The simplified question on the genetic change of a conserved plant germplasm accession over time is raised for a better understanding of the challenging mission of conserving more than 7.4 million germplasm accessions in 2000 genebanks worldwide for generations to come. Its answer will influence how these genebanks operate to ensure the continued survival and availability of the conserved plant genetic resources for future food security. Here, we explore the expected impact of evolutionary forces on plant germplasm in genebanks, search for the theoretical expectations and empirical evidence for such impacts from the literature, and discuss the ramifications of the evidence for long-term plant germplasm management and conservation. It is expected that genetic changes of long-term conserved germplasm under genebank conditions will occur commonly as an evolutionary rule, not as an exception. Incorporating evolutionary biology into the Genebank Standards and operational procedures will benefit the mission of long-term germplasm conservation.

Spanish pear germplasm collections are crucial for preservation, research, and breeding efforts. However, genetic diversity and structure is unknown at national level. A coordinated national project analyzed 1251 accessions from 7 Spanish pear collections using an internationally recognized set of 14 SSRs to enhance the utilization of these collections. Key findings included the identification of 760 unique genotypes (490 diploids and 270 triploids). Notably, genotypes represented by a single accession accounted for 49% of the total, indicating high vulnerability of this material. Using a Bayesian clustering method revealed two main genetic groups, G1 containing most foreign cultivars and G2 retaining local Spanish cultivars, which were further divided into two other subgroups using a nested approach, revealing moderate but significant differentiation among them. The populations were renamed according to the origin of the reference samples assigned to each group as ‘South’ (G1.1), ‘Western Europe-1’ (G1.2), ‘Western Europe-2’ (G2.1) and ‘No-Pyrus communis’ (G2.2). The results led to the creation of a ‘generalist’ collection, aiming to maximize genetic diversity representativeness, starting with 68 genotypes but expanding to 111 to achieve better allele recovery. This core collection is a valuable resource for genetic studies and conservation, enhancing efforts to preserve pear biodiversity.

Societal Impact Statement Crop genetic resources, particularly seeds held in ex situ germplasm collections, have enormous value in breeding climate‐resilient crops. Much of this value accrues from information associated with germplasm accessions. Here, we argue that flavor, culinary attributes, and other traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) are important characteristics alongside genomic information and high‐throughput phenotypes. We explore both the value of this information and the potential risks of exploitation of sensitive TEK. We also examine the potential of in situ conservation to preserve not just the genetic diversity of crops, but the TEK associated with them. Summary Crop genetic diversity is essential for meeting the challenges posed to agriculture by a rapidly changing climate. Harnessing that diversity requires well‐organized information, often held by ex situ genebanks and associated databases. However, the characterization of crop germplasm often lacks information on its cultural and culinary background, specifically its flavor or taste. For most crops, characterization data is lacking, but when it is present it is more likely to include whole genome information, high‐throughput estimation of growth characteristics, and chemical profiles indicating flavor rather than details on the dishes for which particular varieties are favored or how smallholder farms have grown particular accessions. This loss of cultural and culinary information, and the broader loss of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), is more than just missing information. It is a loss of legacy when landraces are no longer grown by the communities that developed them. In the face of climate change, TEK has great value for developing more sustainable or resilient practices. And with increasingly global palettes, we must balance consumers enjoying dishes from new crops with the appropriation of culturally meaningful foods. Our aim here is to explore this flavor gap, to understand the risks in sharing data and the benefits of honoring long‐established uses. We emphasize the importance of ensuring the fair representation of diverse peoples in genebanks and consider both ex situ and in situ conservation approaches. Finally, we analyze the impact of modern breeding choices on culinary diversity, emphasizing the preservation of ancestral knowledge and flavor profiles. সামাজিক প্রভাব বিবৃতি: শস্য জিনগত সম্পদ, বিশেষত যে শস্যবীজগুলি ex situ germplasm সংগ্ৰহের অংশ হিসেবে সংরক্ষিত হয়, জলবায়ু পরিবর্তন প্রতিরোধী শস্য প্রজননে তাদের গুরুত্ব অপরিসীম। এই বীজগুলির মূল্যায়ন মূলত করা হয় নির্দিষ্ট germplasm accessionগুলির বিষয়ে উপলব্ধ তথ্যাবলীর ভিত্তিতে। এই গবেষণামূলক প্রবন্ধের মাধ্যমে আমরা যুক্তি দ্বারা প্রমাণ করেছি যে স্বাদ, সুবাস, বিভিন্ন ধরনের রন্ধন বৈশিষ্ট্য ও অন্যান্য পরম্পরাগত পরিবেশজ্ঞান (Traditional Ecological Knowledge/TEK), genetic তথ্য ও high‐throughput phenotype র মতই গুরুত্বপূর্ণ। আমরা এই তথ্যাবলীগুলির মূল্য বিশ্লেষণ করেছি এবং TEKর সংবেদনশীল তথ্যাবলীর শোষণের সম্ভাব্য বিপদের পর্যালোচনা করেছি। এছাড়াও আমরা শস্যের জিনগত বৈচিত্র্য অক্ষুণ্ন রাখার সঙ্গে তাদের সাথে অঙ্গাঙ্গিভাবে জড়িয়ে থাকা TEKগুলিকেও বাঁচিয়ে রাখার জন্য, in situ সংরক্ষণের সম্ভাবনা পরীক্ষা করে দেখেছি ।. Crop genetic resources, particularly seeds held in ex situ germplasm collections, have enormous value in breeding climate‐resilient crops. Much of this value accrues from information associated with germplasm accessions. Here, we argue that flavor, culinary attributes, and other traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) are important characteristics alongside genomic information and high‐throughput phenotypes. We explore both the value of this information and the potential risks of exploitation of sensitive TEK. We also examine the potential of in situ conservation to preserve not just the genetic diversity of crops, but the TEK associated with them.

Ensuring the clonal identity of accessions within a germplasm repository, such as the US National Pyrus collection, is critical. Additionally, pedigree confirmation and understanding population structure is an important part of breeding and managing genetic resources. The ability to validate pedigree and identity is challenging and inconclusive through morphology alone. DNA information can be used to confirm parentage and identity by descent. A Pyrus fingerprinting set was previously developed by the European Cooperative Program for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR) and consists of 12 dinucleotide-containing simple sequence repeats (SSRs) markers that are amplified in two PCR reactions. The ECPGR set is difficult to use because dinucleotide-containing SSRs often exhibit a number of amplification artifacts such as stutters, split peaks, and binning errors. High-core repeat (3–6 bp motifs) SSRs do not exhibit many of the artifacts displayed by dinucleotide-containing SSRs. Therefore, an easy-to-use 10-SSR fingerprint set containing high-core repeat SSRs that can be evaluated in a single reaction was developed. This fingerprinting set, known as the US Pyrus Genetic Resources (USPGR) set, was compared with the ECPGR set and to single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers found on the new 70K pear Axiom™ array for its ability to assess diversity, population structure, pedigree, and identity. The USPGR set performed similarly to both genotyping platforms while being easier to use. Additionally, the present study demonstrates the usefulness of SSRs in the age of high-throughput genotyping and sequencing platforms.

Abstract Seed (gene)banking is an effective way to conserve cultivated and wild plant diversity. However, long-term funding is not always consistently sufficient, and there is a need to both strengthen the effectiveness of genebank operations and maximize cost efficiency. One way to control the cost of maintaining a germplasm collection is to optimize the quantity of seeds per accession that is placed into storage, depending on the expected length of time a seed lot will remain above the viability threshold, expected rates of use for distribution and viability testing and on the requirement to ensure a reserve. Here, we express this as an equation, which can be applied to cultivated species and adjusted to different scenarios, but also to inform decisions about use of accessions of wild species where the number of seeds available is limited, a common scenario for wild-species conservation seed banks. For many crop genebanks, given the expected longevity of seeds, it would be worthwhile to increase the number of seeds produced and processed for storage. This would also help to diminish the risk of genetic drift due to frequent cycles of regeneration but would have implications in terms of how accessions are regenerated, in particular, how many plants are used for regeneration and the size of storage facilities. The equation we present can also be rearranged and used to plan how to allocate seeds for testing and use when the number of seeds available is limited. This may have particular relevance for species conservation seed banks. Lay Summary To ensure the sustained conservation of plant diversity in seed (gene) banks, it is important to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operations. Here, we present an equation to determine the optimum quantity of seeds for germplasm storage. Application of this equation has the potential to reduce cycles of seed multiplication.

We present a method for multispectral seed phenotyping as a fast and robust tool for managing genebank accessions. A multispectral vision system was used to take images of the seeds of 20 diverse varieties of rice (approximately 30 seeds for each variety). This was followed by extraction of feature information from the images. Multivariate analysis of the feature data was used to classify seed phenotypes according to accession. The proportion of correctly classified rice seeds was 93%. We conclude that the multispectral image analysis could play a role in comparing incoming seeds against existing accessions, identifying different seed types within a sample of seeds and/or in checking whether regenerated seeds match the original seeds.

AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center maintains the world’s largest international public collection of vegetable genetic resources at its headquarters in Taiwan. The ex situ conservation and dissemination of germplasm to researchers and breeders worldwide contributes to global food and nutrition security but also carries considerable costs. The objective of this study is to quantify these costs for the 12-month period from September 2011 to August 2012 using the Decision Support Tool developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute. The results show that the present value of capital assets is USD 1.99 million for the facilities and USD 0.48 million for the equipment. The total annual cost is USD 0.684 million, of which 74 % are labor costs. The average conservation and dissemination cost per accession is USD 10.08 per year. Seed regeneration, seed processing, characterization, and seed dissemination are the four most costly operations of the genebank. The storage itself only contributes 17 % of the cost. In comparison, the average cost per accession is USD 5.15 at ICARDA, USD 6.84 at CIMMYT, USD 8.62 at ICRISAT, USD 9.19 at IRRI, and USD 22.52 at CIAT (in 2012 US dollar values). High labor costs in Taiwan increase AVRDC’s average cost, but the fact that more vegetable species are self-pollinating and thus less labor intensive to regenerate than cross-pollinating species keeps the average costs in check. These results are important benchmarks for other genebanks.

There is extensive duplication of accessions among collection holders globally. To save costs, unwanted duplication should be avoided. This issue has been addressed internationally. In Europe, there are currently 35 Brassica collections located in 24 countries. Duplication may be identified not only by surveying passport data and seed transactions, but also by applying morphological or genetic characterization. Our study included two collections; one at the N. I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Genetic Resources in St. Petersburg (VIR) and one at the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NGB). A random set of 13 accession pairs or triplets of cabbage, turnip and swede were selected on the basis of identical or similar accession names. The accessions could potentially be regarded as duplicates. Morphological characterization showed that in about 50% the pair/triplet, the accessions were identical and should thus be regarded as duplicate holding. Determining the status of the remaining accessions, which were more or less distinct but had identical or similar names, was more difficult. In this paper, possible explanations for the similarities in names are discussed, as is the need to include characterization in any duplicate assessment process.

Europe is very active in terms of conserving plant genetic resources, with hundreds of genebanks and thousands of dedicated people involved. However, the resulting infrastructure is, along with being very expensive, far from efficient and not very reliable. In this opinion paper, the authors describe how this situation arose, and why the European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR), the collaborative umbrella organization of the European countries involved, has not been able to improve this situation so far significantly. The principles of the decentralized virtual genebank (AEGIS) are described, and an analysis is made of the reasons for its lack of success. Possible changes for making AEGIS a success, or at least steps in the right direction, are proposed. These changes center around the creation of a system of certified genebanks with proper quality management, guaranteeing the long-term conservation of, and immediate access to the plant genetic resources conserved in it.