Integration of Conservation Strategies of Plant Genetic ... - Genres

- collection of genotypes endangered with extinction,
- evaluation of collected materials,
- preservation of collected materials in viable form and provision for breeders,
- documentation of collected materials.
The programme was enriched with new elements with the passage of time, in particular:
- greater number of species was comprised with the investigations,
- research groups of universities, branch institutes and plant breeding stations were involved in
the programme,
-increased the share of basic investigations, such as phytogeography, mapping of genes, specific
substances in Fabaceae and others.
The National Crop Genetic Resources Conservation Programme in Poland is based on multiinstitutional
input (Buli_ska-Radomska et al. 1991) Three universities, 6 branch instituties, 7
breeding station, the Botanical Garden of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Botanical
Garden of PBAI carry the responsibility for evaluation, regeneration and multiplication of crop
collections (tab.2). The programme is financed by the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Committee
of Scientific Research. Figure 1 shows the organizational framework of the programme.
The role of national coordinator of the plant genetic resources conservation programme has been
entrusted to the Plant Breeding and Acclimatization Institute. Introduction, documentation and
storage services are handled centrally by Gene Bank Laboratory of PBAI. It also organizes
collecting missions, trainings and meetings.
Collection state
The number of all objects in the collections worked out within the programme amounted to 62
ths, which represents a broad range of plant categories such as: cereals, forages, root and tuber
crops, horticular plants, vegetables, spices, medicinal, fibre and industral plants (tab.3). Among
11 groups of plant most frequent are cereals (about 23,000 accessions) and grasses (20,000
accessions).
The structure of collections is breeders orientated who prefer to work with advanced materials
and breeding lines. However expedition missions provide important amount of unique materials.
The exploration of territory of Poland as well as other countries is organized mainly by Gene
Bank Laboratory and Botanical Garden of PBAI. Since 1976 several such trips have been held
to northeast, east and southeast parts of Poland to collect cultivated, wild and weed germplasm.
These regions have been traditionaly regarded as the agriculturaly least advanced and therefore
most likely to provide old varieties and landraces of crop plants. During the missions about 2000
samples were collected. The previous collecting missions were orientated on collecting of cereals.
Now collectors of germplasm are focused on collection of vegatables which primitive forms are
still available. The programme of preservation of landraces of vegetables is done by Gene Bank
Laboratory and the Institute of Vegetables.