Maize

The EVA Maize network is the newest addition to the EVA networks, resulting from the successful first meeting of the new ECPGR Maize Working group in December 2019.  

An extension of the project “Implementation of the ECPGR EVA Network on wheat/barley and vegetable crops (carrot, lettuce and pepper)” was granted by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture with an additional contribution of ca. € 300 000 until November 2022. This extension will enable the newly formed Working Group on Maize to add value to European maize genetic resources within an appropriate framework of public/private partnerships, with adoption of common standards, use of EURISCO and strengthening of the AEGIS collection.  

This network can build on experience of the French public-private partnership Promaïs as well as previous European projects with the involvement of national genebanks and will evaluate a total of 200-500 European genebank accessions of maize for a variety of relevant traits, including abiotic and biotic stress responses and morphological characteristics with importance to breeders in multilocation experiments.