Report of a Vegetables Network.
Second Meeting,
26–28 June 2007,
Olomouc,
Czech Republic
PART I - DRAFT
(PDF file 484KB)

Report of the ECPGR Network Coordinating Groups.
First Meeting,
29-31 March 2006, Bonn, Germany
[PDF file 566KB]

Working Groups

Allium

Brassica

Cucurbits

Leafy Vegetables

Solanaceae

Umbellifer Crops

	Background information		Tracing duplicates
	Documentation		Safety-duplication
	Regeneration		Wild species management

Background information

During the tenth meeting (mid-term of Phase VII) of the ECPGR Steering Committee held in Latvia, September 2006, it was decided to move the MAP WG to the Sugar, Starch and Fibre Crops Network, hence reverting the Network's name to the original Vegetables Network.

The Second meeting of the full Network was held in Olomouc, Czech Republic, on 26-28 June 2007.

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 Vegetables 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 Vegetables Network activities is through the existing Working Groups on: Allium, Brassica, Cucurbits, Leafy Vegetables, Solanaceae and Umbellifer Crops.

The Vegetables Network was established in February 1999. In May 2000, in Vila Real, Portugal, the ECPGR Vegetables Network Coordinating Group recommended also extending collaborative activities to a wider range of crops, to be included within the Network's mandate. The scope of new informal ad hoc Groups would be on Solanaceae (tomato, pepper and eggplant), Cucurbits (all crops) and Leafy Vegetables (lettuce, spinach and chicory).
The establishment of a new Working Group on Solanaceae and two new WGs on Cucurbits and Leafy Vegetables was approved by the ECPGR Steering Committee in October 2001 and October 2003, respectively.

Approved EU GEN RES projects under Regulation 1467/94 on Brassica, carrot, eggplant and melon were considered an opportunity to organize joint meetings and establish synergies (2001-2004).

A Vegetables Network meeting was held for the first time in Skierniewice, Poland, May 2003. The Network endorsed the priorities for Phase VII as established by the Steering Committee (Turkey 2003). A specific request to formalize safety-duplication actions in Priority area 2 is made at Network level.

See article: Conservation and Use of Vegetable Genetic Resources: A European Perspective, L. Maggioni.
ISHS XXVIth International Horticultural Congress and Exhibition. Toronto, Canada, 11-17 August 2002

Documentation

The most visible achievement of the Network in recent years is the progress made by the ECPGR central crop databases, with the initiation of new databases for Tomato, Eggplant, Pepper, Cyphomandra and Physalis, Cucurbits and Lactuca. Also a substantial increase of characterization and evaluation data and the definition of core collections of Brassica crops was possible, owing mainly to the input of the EU-funded projects.

Regeneration

An emergency regeneration of about 200 old carrot accessions for the Vavilov Institute (VIR, Russian Federation) was carried out by institutes in France, Italy, Poland and the UK between 1998 and 2003. On the basis of this example, it was recommended to establish a system to deal with emergency regeneration requests.

See: Facilitating Use of Vegetable Genetic Resources: A Proposal of Collaboration Between Genebanks and the Private Sector

Tracing duplicates

The Network agreed to endorse the proposal made by the Brassica WG, to start a process to define a methodology between WG members in order to trace duplicate accessions in the European collections, starting with an analysis of the passport data. This should also lead to the definition of a procedure to identify priorities among the duplicate holders for regeneration and conservation tasks.

Safety-duplication

The following actions will be carried out at Network level:

• Identifying offers of storage of "black boxes"

• Identifying lack of safety-duplicate arrangements among WG members

• Encouraging each member to improve the level of safety-duplication during Phase VII of ECPGR

Wild species management

The initiative of the Allium WG to study the wild genepool taxonomy and structure was endorsed by the Network. In particular, a clarification of the relationship between genomes of wild relatives and cultivated species should be documented in relation with breeding and GR use.

Contacts

Network Coordinator:
Mr Dave Astley

Network Coordinating Group members


Documents

Network Related Publications

Budget
as of December 06



Meetings & Reports

Vegetables Network
Meetings & Reports


Network Coordinating Group
Meetings & Reports


Allium Working Group
Meetings & Reports


Brassica Working Group
Meetings & Reports


Cucurbits Working Group
Meetings & Reports


Leafy Vegetables Working Group
Meetings & Reports


Solanaceae Working Group
Meetings & Reports


Umbellifer Crops Working Group
Meetings & Reports



Databases

ECPGR Vegetables Databases