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Avena Working Group

Cereals Network


Report of a Cereals Network.
Second Meeting,
21-24 April 2008,
Foça, Turkey
(including Avena WG session)
DRAFT Feb 2009
(PDF file 405KB)

Minutes of a Working Group on Avena.
Ad hoc meeting,
23 July 2004, Helsinki, Finland
[PDF file 274KB]
(from: Report of a Cereals Network. First meeting, 3-5 July 2003, Yerevan, Armenia. Appendix II)





The European Avena Database



Avena Working Group members

Avena Meetings & Reports


Report on the Avena collection trip to Murcia and Andalusia, Spain,
10-16 June 2007.
[74KB PDF file]

Informal Meeting on AEGIS and ECPGR Cereal Network Topics.
18 September 2007, Clermont Ferrand, France.
[10KB PDF file]


  Background information   In situ conservation
  The European Avena Database   Ex situ conservation
  Safety-duplication   Collecting Priorities
  Regeneration   Pre-breeding
  Core Collections   Link with EU Project

Background information

The ECPGR Working Group on Avena was established in 1984 as one of the original six Working Groups developed during the first Phase of ECPGR. The Group has met five times, developing and updating workplans at successive meetings.
The Group met in a parallel session with the other Cereals Network Working Groups, during the First Cereals Network meeting, held in Yerevan, Armenia, 3-5 July 2003. It held an ad hoc meeting in Helsinki, Finland, 23 July 2004 jointly with the VII International Oat Conference. A 1-day meeting of the Avena WG took place in Alnarp, Sweden, 28 November 2004 in order to prepare a GENRES project proposal. The Group met in a parallel session with the other Cereals Network Working Groups, during the Second Cereals Network meeting, held Foça, Turkey, 21-24 April 2008.

The European Avena Database (EADB)

The European Avena Database (EADB) was established in 1984 at the former Braunschweig Genetic Resources Collection (BGRC), and is now managed by the Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, the Julius Kuehn Institute (JKI), Braunschweig, Germany.

The database contains passport data of 32 910 accessions representing the Avena collections from 26 European contributors. FAO/IPGRI Multi-Crop Passport Descriptors were adopted for data exchange. The taxonomic system based on the biological species concept has been adopted as the taxonomic reference. A taxonomic key system including photographs has been incorporated into the EADB.

It is considered a priority to build on the work already completed and to proceed with:

Incorporation of further data from Europe
Linking the Canadian and American genebank databases with the EADB. It was recommended that every effort should be made to incorporate other data from other holders e.g. Australia
Include data from the EC 1467/94 project "Evaluation and enhancement of Avena landrace collections for extensification of the genetic basis of Avena for quality and resistance breeding"

An ECPGR-funded project for "Inclusion of characterization and evaluation data from the oat collection of the Vavilov Institute (VIR), St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, into the European Avena Database" was completed in June 2005.
Completed passport data were provided for 2203 accessions.
During database update all information was used for a revision of the duplicate groups. Geographic collecting information was of special interest, mostly from Russia (67), Moldova (60), Azerbaijan (55), Ukraine (36), former Yugoslavia (35), etc.
A parallel taxonomic system was implemented in the EADB. Taxon names at all subspecific levels can now be queried interactively in the EADB web interface. Characterization and evaluation data from 12 experiments were provided and uploaded to the EADB evaluation and characterization module.
A completely new module was also introduced into the EADB with data on alleles identified for certain traits (especially disease resistance). Using the duplicate information already available in the EADB, besides 997 VIR accessions, other 4733 accession within the European collection can be related to the entered alleles, which may probably be sources of the same alleles and traits.
See: the full report of this project [here] (zipped Word file of 1.1MB).

The Group recommend that the Avena database would make a model system -as it is already well developed and the Avena collection is of medium size in comparison to the main cereal collections- for devising such a system of “warehousing” which would benefit the other cereal databases within the Cereals Network, and that all efforts should be sought to find funding for the project, possibly during Phase VII.

Safety-duplication

Safety-duplication has been identified as a priority. However, particularly in the case of wild material with very low seed yields, it is not only difficult, but also expensive and there is little financial support for this work.

Regeneration

Regeneration of some of the existing collections is still a problem. This issue was raised during the fifth Avena Working Group meeting (see: Fifth meeting) but there is still no source of funding.

Core Collections

The Group recommended continuing the development of core collections from within the three "genepools": cultivated, landrace and wild species (in collaboration with VIR).

In situ conservation

The group has identified specific species which require in situ conservation because of their universal scarcity. However, there are concerns as to how this is achieved, and what would be the difference in the level of diversity after say 10 years compared to the diversity which is already held in ex situ collections from the same site.

Ex situ conservation - Rationalization of collections

In order to identify duplicates, the preliminary database analysis showed 7273 unique accessions and 4223 duplicate groups. 53% of well documented accessions are considered duplicates.

Collecting Priorities

There are still gaps in certain geographic regions in which wild Avena species have not been collected. It is recommended that:

Further effort be placed in the collecting of A. magna, A. murphyi, A. insularis and A. macrostachya
Continued efforts should be put to ensure that important sites of the former three species are conserved in situ

Pre-breeding

Pre-breeding strategies are felt to be needed but these should involve collaborative efforts. "Task-sharing" would be one way to initiate such projects within the breeding community, but countries outside of the EU should also be included.

Link with EU Project

The five-year project (2000 – 2004) entitled "Evaluation and enhancement of Avena landrace collections for extensification of the genetic basis of Avena for quality and resistance breeding" under regulation EC 1467/94 was approved for funding in 1998. Within the framework of the GEN RES project, characterization and evaluation data on 1500-2000 Avena landrace accessions grown in five different environments were also screened using molecular markers. Data from this project will be included in the EADB in the future. The project has the following objectives:

  1. Creation of the oats landrace inventory and database containing passport data and evaluation data of approximately 800 to 1000 landraces held in the partners' collections. Development of a CD-ROM with photos of distinct accessions available

  2. Identification of seed reproduction needs and seed multiplication for distribution to all partners for points 3 and 4 below - all material (i.e. 800 to 1000 accessions)

  3. Recording and registration of primary descriptors on all material grown at 5 locations

  4. Recording and registration of secondary descriptors (disease resistance – Puccinia coronata f.sp. avenae, Erysiphe graminis f.sp. avenae, and BYDV - and protein content) on all material

  5. Molecular (RAPDs) characterization of all material

  6. Identification of duplicates and designation of a core collection (with safety-duplication)

  7. Coordination of project and dissemination of results, ensuring free access to all the data gathered during the duration of the project, and availability of seed to interested parties



For more information or comments:
Please contact the Chair of the Working Group: Mr Andreas Katsiotis [click here] and Vice-Chair: Mr Jens Weibull [click here]