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Triticale and Rye Genetic Resources in Europe.
Ad hoc Meeting,
28 September 2006, Nyon, Switzerland
[PDF file 850KB]
Report of the ECPGR Network Coordinating Groups.
First Meeting,
29-31 March 2006, Bonn, Germany
[PDF file 566KB]
Rescue collections of Aegilops sharonensis in Israel
Final report
[PDF file 164KB]
The European Triticale Database
Working Groups
Avena
Barley
Wheat
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Background information
The Cereals Network will hold its second meeting in Foça, Turkey, on 21-24 April 2008.
A Triticale and Rye ad hoc meeting was held in Nyon, Switzerland, on 28 September 2006
(see: report [here]).
A meeting of the ECPGR Network Coordinating Groups took place in Bonn, Germany,
on 29-31 March 2006. See:
Report of the
ECPGR Network Coordinating Groups. First Meeting, 29-31 March 2006, Bonn, Germany.
Presentations given during the NCGs meeting
The first meeting of the Cereals Network was held in Yerevan, Armenia, 3-5 July 2003.
The Network endorsed the
priorities for Phase VII as established by the Steering Committee (Turkey 2003), and stressed as a high
priority the increased, sustainable and continuous utilization of PGR as envisaged by the International Treaty
on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA).
The Cereals Network is overseen by a
Network Coordinating Group (NCG), composed of the Working Group Chairs plus a number of other coopted Network members.
The responsibilities of the Network Coordinating Group are:
To formulate proposals, in consultation with the WG members, for the attention of the
ECPGR
Steering Committee on WG priorities and activities, following the planning and prioritizing mechanism
established by the SC To define the WGs to remain prioritized during the 5-year Phase, according to the
planning and prioritizing mechanism established by the SC
The main implementation of the Cereals Network activities is through the three Working
Groups on Avena, Barley and Wheat.
Documentation
The NCG acknowledged that the main progress made by the Working Groups was
in the area of documentation, however, the need to continue adding information, especially pedigree data and
characterization and evaluation data was identified. It was also pointed out that passport data are not
always complete and need further work.
It was recommended that some basic standards for Central Crop Databases (CCDBs) search options be developed.
A proposal was made that a specific meeting of the Documentation and Information Network to discuss the
issue of characterization and evaluation data should be held in the near future.
The introduction of the use of the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) by the CCDB managers for the
analysis of germplasm distribution was also recommended. The need to improve the quality of geo-references
was stressed, as well as the need to facilitate links and to move towards integration of European data with
other national and international databases.
Sharing of responsibilities for germplasm conservation
The status of the debate on sharing responsibilities within the
ECPGR Networks has been summarized
during the ad hoc Cereals Network Coordinating Group meeting in Poland (2000) (see: full presentation
by W. Podyma [here], also available from the meeting report
at pp. 53-57). He invited the Cereals Network to proceed a step further in the implementation of an agreed
mechanism. The preferred approach is that curators offer to take responsibility for a list of accessions.
The essential role of the DB manager in any mechanism of shared responsibility was, however, stressed.
The DB manager was said to be in the best condition to analyze the data and pinpoint gaps or duplications
remaining after the curators have assumed responsibility for their own list of accessions.
In Yerevan (2003), the following recommendations were agreed:
DB managers agreed to analyze their DBs to define lists of unique accessions conserved in different genebanks
and send these lists to the WG members
Working Group members and genebank curators, in consultation with appropriate authorities and after further
interaction with the DB manager, are encouraged to take the responsibility for conservation
Safety-duplication
The need to implement a system at the Cereals Network level for the safety-duplication of
all unique accessions was expressed. It was suggested that small groups with representation from the
different WGs should be established to prepare documents for the attention of the Network in order to find
solutions to common problems.
Quality standards
During the NCG meeting in Poland (2000), it was recommended that the genebanks cooperating
with the Cereals Network adopt the principles of the ISO 9000 (see: full presentation by C. U. Germeier and
L. Frese [here], also available from the meeting report
at pp. 43-52) and that they develop their own quality guidelines for cereal collections and publish them.
To adopt the ISO system for quality standard improvement, genebanks would need to appoint a quality manager
and publish a handbook of internally applied standards.
Genebanks that have already developed internal protocols are encouraged to send copies to
C. Germeier, to be used for further distribution and discussion within the Network.
In situ / On-farm conservation
A list of wild relatives of cultivated plants indigenous in Europe is now available, derived
from data received from the Flora Europea project (University of Reading, UK).
Concern for the risk of loss of some wild relative species that are very rare and therefore at high risk of
loss, such as the recently discovered Avena insularis in Sicily, was expressed.
On the on-farm conservation side, it is expected that a modification of the seed law in the EU will allow
growing and trade of local varieties of importance for genetic diversity conservation and use. The importance
of cooperation with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in this area should also be stressed.
It is suggested to the Steering Committee to look for possibility of cooperation in the area of PGR with
agro-environmental programs and the
European Ecological Network NATURA 2000 in particular countries.
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Contacts
Network Coordinator:
Mr Helmut Knüpffer
Network Coordinating Group members
Documents
Network Related Publications
Budget
as of December 06
Meetings & Reports
Cereals Network
Meetings & Reports
Network Coordinating Group
Meetings & Reports
Avena Working Group
Meetings & Reports
Barley Working Group
Meetings & Reports
Wheat Working Group
Meetings & Reports
Maize, Secale and Triticale
Meetings & Reports
Databases
ECPGR Cereals Databases
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