ITEMS FROM SWEDEN

 

THE NORDIC GENEBANK
P.O. Box 41, SE230 53, Alnarp, Sweden.

Triticum accessions in the collections of the Nordic Gene Bank. [p. 163-164]

Fredrik Ottosson, Louise Bondo, Oscar Diaz, and Bent Skovmand.

The Nordic Gene Bank (NGB) is a centre for conservation, documentation, and utilization of plant genetic resources within the Nordic region. The NGB was founded in 1979 and is an institute under the Nordic Council of Ministers. The mandate of NGB is to conserve cultivated species and their wild relatives within the region that involves the countries of Denmark, Finland, Island, Norway, and Sweden, and the three independent areas of Greenland, Faeroe Islands, and Aaland.

The conservation strategy is based on simple and cost-effective techniques, utilizing freezers for seed storage. The seed material is maintained in a central seed storage facility and divided into three separate collections. The active collection is for distribution, characterization, and multiplication. The base collection is for long-term conservation, and the safety duplication collection is a replicate of the base collection and is stored on Svalbard.

The NGB information and documentation system contains extensive information about the mandate species and the material stored. The material is easily accessible to users at http://www.ngb.se. The NGB promotes strategic and applied research projects on the mandate species to improve conservation and utilization of its genetic resources. The genetic resources in the NGB collections are managed according to the Kalmar agreement (Access and Rights to Genetic Resources: A Nordic Approach. 2003. Nord 2003:16, Nordic Council of Ministers, Copenhagen), which states that NGB genetic resources are managed in the public domain and freely available to bona fide users.

Triticum at the Nordic Gene Bank. [p. 164]

In the collections at the NGB, there are 1,543 accessions of Triticum sp. (Table 1). Close relatives, such as Aegilops and Secale, also are represented in the collections. The majority of the above listed accessions belong to the "ordinary collection" of the NGB. In addition, the gene bank maintains several subcollections in which accessions of Triticum and close relatives can be found:

The Mac Key Collection of near-isogenic lines. [p. 164]

The collection of NILs in wheat, oat, and barley has been developed by Professor James Mac Key at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala. The NILs carry resistance genes for several diseases of cereals as well as genes for different physiological traits. In the collection there are 120 lines of spring wheat (backcrossed to Prins) and 79 accessions of winter wheat (backcrossed to Starke II).

The Nilsson-Ehle/Müntzing Inbred Rye Collection. [p. 164]

This collection consists of 131 inbred lines derived from the rye cultivar Stål. Professor Herman Nilsson-Ehle at the Swedish Seed Association (Sveriges Utsädesförening) began developing this material in 1925. The project was later continued by professors Arne Müntzing (from 1938 to 1974) and Arne Lundqvist at the Institute for Genetics, Lund University.

The collection of wild Triticeae species and local varieties. [p. 165]

Comprising this collection are 1,286 accessions, which consists of wild and cultivated species from tribe Triticeae. There are samples of species within genera Hordeum, Triticum, Secale, Aegilops, Elymus, Roegneria, Agropyron, and Brachypodium.

The larger part of the material is Hordeum accessions. The collection is the result from a Swedish-Danish coöperation in Triticeae. The collection has been donated to NGB by Professor Roland von Bothmer at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Triticum material in the collection. There are 85 accessions of T. aestivum subsp. aestivum. All are landraces. One originates in Argentina, two in the former USSR (Tadjhikistan), seven in Pakistan, and the others have been collected in China. In this collection there also is one accession of T. monococcum subsp. monococcum, one accession of T. turgidum subsp. durum, four accessions of Aegilops spp., and two of S. cereale.

The Haslund-Christensen Expedition to Central Asia. [p. 165]

The material was collected in Afghanistan during the 1940s by the Haslund-Christensen expedition from Copenhagen University. This unique collection of about one hundred cereal accessions cannot be repatriated to the country of origin under present circumstances, and the NGB has taken long-term responsibility for the material. There are 63 accessions of Triticum sp. and nine of S. cereale in this collection.

The Åberg Collection. [p. 165]

During the years 1953-55, C. L. Behm collected material in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Tibet, and Iran. The collection was handed over to Professor Erik Åberg at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, in 1955. Professor Åberg donated the material to NGB. The Åberg collection consists of about 1060 spike samples (herbarium) of Hordeum, Triticum, and Avena, as well as 53 seed accessions (of which none are Triticum). The material is of significant historical value, probably of great diversity, and will most likely be of importance for future research.