MINUTES OF THE WHEAT CROP GERMPLASM COMMITTEE

3 February, 1999.
Nashville, TN, USA.

The meeting was called to order by Chairman Stephen Jones, Washington State University, and nine members and six guests were in attendance. Members in attendance were Stephen Jones, Steven Leath, Bent Skovmand, Rollie Line, Harold Bockelman, Fred Kolb, Bob Busch, Olin Anderson, and John Moffat. The following guests also attended: Steve Harrison, Tim Murray, Jim Peterson, Dale Clark, Mark Bohning, and Ann Blechl.


The 1999 minutes.

The 1997 minutes were accepted as included in the Annual Wheat Newsletter.

Review of the CGC chairs meeting summer 1998, Ames, Iowa.

H. Bockelman reported that CGC chairs meeting, held every other year, discussed international issues on germ plasm exchange and exploration proposals. The chairmen of all 40 germ plasm committees were invited to attend.

New guidelines.

There are new guidelines for plant exploration and exchange. A brief overview of the guidelines was given by Jones. One wheat proposal was submitted to USDA last year.

Material Transfer Agreements specific.

H. Bockelman showed an example material transfer agreement from IRRI that is the same as that used by all CGC centers. 'You open the seed, you abide by the MTA terms' is the basic idea behind the agreement. The USDA will produce a similar system for redistribution of seed from the international centers. The proposed MTA will follow the example of others.

A discussion of the situation was led by Bent Skovmand, and among other things, he noted that some international center research material is held in trust and some is available through MTA.

MTA's and farmers rights.

After a general discussion, the conclusion seems to be a general approach with an MTA on the package. EST and DNA sequences will face similar problems, as we move into that array of technology. Farmers are concerned about lack of ability to replant seed they grow. For example, hybrid wheat and the terminator gene are pushing this issue. Identity preservation seems to be driving this issue. Transgenics may drive growers toward agreements to sell, and companies may need to keep unmodified product available for the export market. In general, farmers are more accustomed to buying seed, especially as growers get bigger, and smaller farmers fade out.

Ad Hoc committee on short-term collections.

Three critical needs were listed in the 1996 report. 1) collect wild relatives of wheat, 2) collect land races, and 3) acquire improved germ plasm. Thought was given to including nursery entries in collections and the possibility for breeders to choose if they want to enter a test line into a temporary collection.

Moffatt wrote a letter to Alan Atchley, PVP Office, on the consequences of entering elite wheat lines into a collection and how this would affect PVP time lines. The response was that the accession of variety into collection does not start a clock toward PVP. One can probably distribute seed if for research purposes only, especially with aproper MTA. Considerable details need to be worked out on these collections, such as how long we keep the collections.

The committee decided to keep an ad hoc committee of Moffatt, Campbell, and Bockelman to try and make sense out of some of these issues.

GRIN System.

Mark Bohning reported that GRIN is now expanding from a plant germ plasm database to all genetic resources (insects, microbial, and animal) Plans are in place to create more of a spreadsheet appearance to GRIN, and there will be some more programming. Another change will include a shopping cart-type system for requesting germ plasm. Imaging will become more common. PC-GRIN has been created especially for international users. At the ASTA meeting, it was resolved to help GRIN with funding, and ASTA asked for doubling of funds for GRIN and to put up $100,000 to lobby for GRIN support.

Peter Bretting is the new project leader for plant germ plasm

The Vavilov Collection.

Bockelman handed out new PI assignments including those for the Sando interspecific crosses. The current financial situation is threatening the collection. Shands indicated international interest in the long-term support for institute and collection. The question "What is the value of their collection ?" was raised. The NSGC has 1,000 accessions from the institute out of a total of 34,000 in the Vavilov Collection. Skovmand feels the collection is worth saving. Original Vavilov collections from the 20's are included. Cal Qualset and others reviewed and found the germ plasm to be good, but the collection needs money. The importance of the collection needs to be stressed. U.S. researchers would regenerate the collection, if granted permission. Jones will draft a letter to Shands and copy it to State Department and others.

Miscellaneous review of committee and by-laws.

Jones pointed out that the by-laws and the 1996 overview by Cox need to be distributed.

Location of next meeting with respect to NWIC/NAWG meetings.

The next Wheat CGC meeting will be with NWIC and NAWG meetings in February 2000, in Las Vegas, NV.

The meeting adjourned at 9:00 pm.

Respectfully submitted by Steven Leath, Secretary.