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Forages Working Group

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Report of a Working Group on Forages.
Eighth meeting,
10-12 April 2003,
Linz, Austria
[PDF file 1.2MB]

Report of a Network Coordinating Group on Forages.
Ad hoc Meeting,
21-22 April 2005, Lindau, Switzerland
[PDF file 325KB]


Workplan agreed in April 2005





The European Forages Databases


Forages Working Group members

Forages Meetings & Reports
  Background information   Core collections
  Sharing of responsibilities   In situ / on-farm conservation
  Safety-duplication   Link with EU project and other projects
  Regeneration standards

Background information

The Working Group on Forages was established in 1984, as one of the original six Working Groups developed during the first Phase of ECPGR. The Group has met eight times, developing and updating workplans at successive meetings. The last meeting was held in Linz, Austria, in April 2003.
The ninth meeting of the Working Group on Forages was held on 23-25 October 2007 in Piest'any, Slovakia.

Sharing of responsibilities

Sharing of responsibilities is considered to be the major task of the Working Group for the remaining part of Phase VII. The WG agreed on a simplified mechanism for sharing of responsibilities in the conservation and management of the European Forage Collections. The Most Original Samples (MOSs) were considered the ideal candidate accessions to be included in these Collections. Putting effort into identifying MOSs was felt to be more effective than the identification of probable duplicates.
The mechanism agreed is based on a procedure proposed by R. Sackville Hamilton for the identification of MOSs (see: Appendix I of the Seventh meeting report, Elvas, Portugal, 1999). The Group aims at defining the primary holder of the accessions of the most important species (see: workplan).

The harmonization of data structure of some of the ECCDBs with the EURISCO data structure is being implemented with some difficulties and it was felt that the method of data exchange must be improved.

Safety-duplication

Space for safety-duplication is available in the WG member countries. See: Appendix I of the NCG ad hoc meeting, Lindau, Switzerland, 2005.

Regeneration standards

A protocol of guidelines for the regeneration of accessions in seed collections of the main perennial forage grasses and legumes of temperate grasslands was developed by R. Sackville Hamilton et al. in 1997. See: Appendix III of the Sixth meeting report, Beitostolen, Norway, 1997.
A description of the regeneration standards used for forage species in each respective country’s genebank has been compiled and updated. See: Appendix II of the NCG ad hoc meeting, Lindau, Switzerland, 2005. The NCG encourages to revise the preferred standards of regeneration based on new knowledge.

Difficulties in the application of these standards for regeneration were acknowledged, but it was recommended that, pending further research, genebanks cooperating with the Working Group on Forages adopt the regeneration standards proposed in the report of the sixth meeting wherever possible, especially for MOS. The Group is looking forward to the indications that the ICONFORS project will be able to give regarding the extent of the genetic effect of the choice of the bulk versus single plant harvest.
The Group agreed that the single plant harvest would be recommendable, whenever it is considered absolutely essential to maintain the genetic integrity of the accessions, while bulk harvesting would remain acceptable, considering current limitations, as the most practical choice for economic reasons.
Institutes having difficulty in implementing the minimum standards may adopt lower standards for other accessions. In this case it is recommended that genebanks publish their own quality guidelines.

Core collections

A core collection of Lolium perenne is under evaluation and the data analysis is in progress (see the article by J. Schmidt, published in the Eighth meeting report, Linz, Austria, 2003 [here]). The Group agreed that there does not seem to be an immediate need to engage in building new core collections, except perhaps in the case of Medicago (see below: Link with EU project and other projects).

In situ / on-farm conservation

In situ conservation activities relate to plant communities consisting of many different species of forage plants. These plant communities of permanent grassland develop under moderate human interference and could therefore be considered similar to crop wild relatives. In some species like Medicago sativa, on-farm conservation of landraces is also of interest.

For on-farm conservation initiatives, see the following articles (published in the Eighth meeting report, Linz, Austria, 2003):
On-farm conservation in Finland. By: L. Bondo [here]
On-farm conservation of forage landraces in Central Italy. By: V. Negri [here]
On-farm conservation/improvement of forages in Norway. By: K. Daugstad and P. Marum [here]
Safeguarding a unique collection of former Swiss red clover landraces. By: B. Boller et al. [here]

Link with EU project and other projects

"Building a European collection of Medicago - Tailoring Medicago genetic resources for the 21st century": a project proposal was submitted to the second call of the EU Regulation (No 870/2004) published in April 2006, coordinated by Jan Nedělník (RIFC, Troubsko, Czech Republic). The project passed the threshold but could not be funded within the available budget.
A project is being carried out in Norway to identify sites for in situ conservation.
A Dutch project to identify the forage diversity within protected areas was concluded and results were published (Molecular Ecology, 2005).
Other projects are under development in Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, respectively, mostly related to on-farm conservation purposes.
Six countries (Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, UK) participated in a four-year EU Framework Project V on Research and Technology Development (ICONFORS), which started in January 2001 to obtain the definitive genetic and economic data required to optimize minimum standards for perennial European forage species germplasm conservation.



For more information or comments:
Please contact the Chair of the Working Group: Ms Merja Veteläinen [click here] and Vice-Chair:
Ms Evelin Willner [click here]