The National Plant Germplasm System: Status and Prospects

1
The National Plant Germplasm System Status and
Prospects

• Peter Bretting
• USDA/ARS Office of National Programs

2
The USDA/ARS National Plant Germplasm System
(NPGS)

• Large holdings of crops without major collections
  at international agricultural research centers,
  e.g., cotton, soybean, various horticultural and
  specialty crops.
• Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN)
  an international standard.

• One of the largest national genebank systems.
• More than 510,000 samples of more than 13,400
  plant species.
• Large collections of the major staple crops
  important to U. S. and world agriculture.

3
USDA National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS)
4
Plant Genetic Resource Management in Genebanks

• Acquisition
• Maintenance
• Regeneration
• Documentation and Data Management
• Distribution

• Characterization
• Evaluation
• Enhancement

5
GRIN-Global

• GRIN Germplasm Resources Information Network.
  http//www.ars-grin.gov/ The genebank information
  management system for the NPGS, and for Canadas
  genebank system (GRIN-Canada).
• The Global Crop Diversity Trust asked ARS and
  Bioversity International (an International
  Agricultural Research Center) to enhance and
  expand GRIN to address global germplasm
  information management needs.
• In 2008, the Trust awarded ARS a 3-year, 1.4
  million grant to develop GRIN-Global ARS is
  devoting 900K in-kind support to the project.
• The project is now about ½ through its funding
  period, with promising progress achieved.

6
GRIN-Global

• Based on GRIN, but can be implemented in both a
  system-wide and stand-alone local management
  mode
• Supports multiple users via a user-friendly
  interface
• Maintains linkages with other databases and
  interoperates with existing systems
• Advanced querying, custom and third-party
  applications

7
Three Tier Architecture
8
GRIN-Global

• On-line ordering/request capability
• Database-flexible, free of recurrent licensing
  costs, with interface and database schema source
  code open and available without restriction to
  further development
• Will become the global standard plant genebank
  information management system

9
Future Prospects
10
Some (but not all!) Key Challenges for the NPGS

• Managing and expanding NPGS operational capacity
  and infrastructure
• Fulfilling the demand for additional
  characterizations/evaluations
• Acquiring and conserving germplasm of wild crop
  relatives
• Managing genetic/genomic seed stocks
• Conserving germplasm of crop-associated microbes

11
Likely Trends for Crop Genetic Resources and
their Management

• Static budgets?
• Increasing costs for managing PGR
• Larger PGR collections
• Increasing demand for PGR

12
Trends in demand for NPGS germplasm and
information vs. NPGS budget
13
Result? mismatch between expanding demand for
PGR and static NPGS capacity to manage it
14
Priorities for Genetic Resource Management in
Genebanks

• Characterization
• Evaluation
• Enhancement

• Acquisition
• Maintenance
• Regeneration
• Documentation and Data Management
• Distribution