Desertification and disarray: the threats to plant genetic resources of southern Darfur, western Sudan

A civil war is being fought in Darfur in western Sudan that has resulted in a humanitarian disaster with large numbers of Sudanese refugees seeking a safe haven in neighbouring Chad. The conflict is largely ecological in origin and is based on competition for natural resources, including plant genetic resources. Western Sudan has relatively low rainfall and supports rainfed sedentary agriculture and nomadic pastoralism, and a range of domesticated plant species is grown under irrigation by seasonal watercourses. Nomadic pastoralist populations move their herds according to established routes of seasonally available range and pasture species. There has always been a delicate balance between the sedentary and nomadic ways of life that through careful use of water and plant genetic resources has maintained the ecology of the region in balance. Drought, deforestation, overpopulation and overgrazing have accelerated desert encroachment and have exerted huge pressures on the ecology of the region. Indigenous plant genetic resources, including many wild species used as famine foods, are the key to livelihoods in the region. The upsurge in violence has resulted in many farmers abandoning their farms and seed stocks. Social systems are disrupted and rehabilitation of agriculture will be very difficult. This article describes domesticated and wild plant genetic resources of southern Darfur and details their importance to livelihoods in the region.

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Advanced Strategic Research to Promote the Use of Rice Genetic Resources

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy10111629 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (11) ◽

pp. 1629

Author(s):

Jae-Sung Lee ◽

Dmytro Chebotarov ◽

John Damien Platten ◽

Kenneth McNally ◽

Ajay Kohli

Keyword(s):

Genetic Resources ◽

Genome Sequencing ◽

Multispectral Imaging ◽

Plant Genetic Resources ◽

Sequencing Data ◽

Rice Varieties ◽

Food And Agriculture ◽

Crop Varieties ◽

Advanced Technologies ◽

Large Numbers

International genebanks have a collection of over 760 K conserved accessions of various plants, most of these accessions are within the multi-lateral system governed by the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). However, in spite of the success in collection and conservation, only a small portion of the genetic diversity has been used in crop breeding programs. As climate change-induced new or enhanced constraints seriously hamper crop productions, researchers and breeders should be able to swiftly choose an appropriate set of genetic resources from the genebank and use them for improving crop varieties. Here, we present some advanced technologies that can effectively promote the use of diverse rice accessions held at national/international genebanks. High throughput phenotyping using multispectral imaging systems and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) can quickly screen large numbers of accessions for various useful traits. Such data, when combined with that from the digital rice genebank consisting of genome sequencing data, will significantly increase the efficiency in breeding efforts. Recent genome sequencing data of the rice wild species will also add to the resources available for pre-breeding efforts such as the introgression of useful genes into modern rice varieties. We expect that these advanced technologies and strategies developed through the global rice research programs will be applicable for many closely related species as well.

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Safeguarding Wild Plant Genetic Resources of Georgia within the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership

European Journal of Sustainable Development ◽

10.14207/ejsd.2019.v8n4p37 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 37

Author(s):

Tsira Mikatadze-Panstulaia ◽

Sandro Kolbaia ◽

Ana Gogoladze

Keyword(s):

Genetic Resources ◽

Plant Species ◽

Seed Bank ◽

Plant Genetic Resources ◽

Botanical Garden ◽

Ex Situ ◽

Wild Plant ◽

Botanic Gardens ◽

Seed Collection ◽

Royal Botanic Gardens

Working group of the Department of Plant Conservation of the National Botanical Garden of Georgia (NBGG) have been participating in the global Millennium Seed Bank Partnership, led by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew since 2005. During the 2005-2018 period, within the scope of MSB-1 and MSB-2, seeds and herbarium samples of more than 1750 plant species and interspecific taxa, belonging to 107 families and 483 genera (more than 41% of Georgia’s flora) – 348 endemics of Caucasus and 151 endemics of Georgia, have been secured in the National Seed Bank of Georgia (NSB). Seed Bank data are managed in BRAHMS (Department of Plant Sciences of Oxford University). The collection of wild plant species is accompanied by the comprehensive database of geographical, botanical and habitat information. Later phase involves laboratory treatment and germination/viability testing (at least 500 seeds per species) and the long-term deposition and storage (under -20◦C temperature) at the National Seed Bank of Georgia. The duplicates of seed collection and herbarium vouchers are stored at the Millennium Seed Bank of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK. Germination capacity and viability of collections in NSB is determined before cold storage of seeds, while at the MSB already banked seeds are tested.Keywords: Seed bank; Ex-situ conservation; Plant diversity; Botanical garden; Genetic resources

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Tritordeum: Creating a New Crop Species—The Successful Use of Plant Genetic Resources

Plants ◽

10.3390/plants10051029 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 1029

Author(s):

Carmen M. Ávila ◽

Cristina Rodríguez-Suárez ◽

Sergio G. Atienza

Keyword(s):

Genetic Resources ◽

Plant Genetic Resources ◽

Wheat Breeding ◽

Wild Plant ◽

Hordeum Chilense ◽

Sources Of Resistance ◽

Crop Species ◽

Innovative Products ◽

The Impact ◽

New Crop

Hexaploid tritordeum is the amphiploid derived from the cross between the wild barley Hordeum chilense and durum wheat. This paper reviews the main advances and achievements in the last two decades that led to the successful development of tritordeum as a new crop. In particular, we summarize the progress in breeding for agronomic performance, including the potential of tritordeum as a genetic bridge for wheat breeding; the impact of molecular markers in genetic studies and breeding; and the progress in quality and development of innovative food products. The success of tritordeum as a crop shows the importance of the effective utilization of plant genetic resources for the development of new innovative products for agriculture and industry. Considering that wild plant genetic resources have made possible the development of this new crop, the huge potential of more accessible resources, such as landraces conserved in gene banks, goes beyond being sources of resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. In addition, the positive result of tritordeum also shows the importance of adequate commercialization strategies and demonstrative experiences aimed to integrate the whole food chain, from producers to end-point sellers, in order to develop new products for consumers.

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Horticultural Value of Wild Genetic Resources—Introduction to the Workshop

HortScience ◽

10.21273/hortsci.46.11.1436 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 46 (11) ◽

pp. 1436-1437 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Gayle M. Volk ◽

Christopher M. Richards

Keyword(s):

Comparative Genomics ◽

Genetic Resources ◽

Plant Genetic Resources ◽

Wild Relatives ◽

Wild Plant ◽

Future Research ◽

Marker Assisted Breeding ◽

Breeding Programs ◽

Ornamental Horticulture ◽

American Society

Wild plant genetic resources are increasingly becoming valuable for breeding, genomics, and ornamental horticulture programs. Wild relatives of horticultural species may offer desirable traits that are not available in cultivated varieties, but “wilds” often also have traits that are highly undesirable. Advances in comparative genomics and marker-assisted breeding facilitate the inclusion of the valued traits from wild materials in plant breeding programs. As technologies advance, wild plant genetic resources will become even more valuable for future research developments. This serves as an introduction to a series of proceedings articles from the American Society of Horticultural Science meetings in 2010 workshop entitled “Horticultural Value of Wild Genetic Resources.”

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