1. The National Plant Germplasm System: Status and Prospects Peter Bretting USDA/ARS Office of National Programs

2. The USDA/ARS National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) One of the largest national genebank systems. More than 510,000 samples of more than 13,400 plant species. Large collections of the major staple crops important to U. S. and world agriculture. Large holdings of crops without major collections at international agricultural research centers, e.g., cotton, soybean, various horticultural and “specialty” crops. Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN): an international standard.

3. USDA National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS)

4. Plant Genetic Resource Management in Genebanks Acquisition Maintenance Regeneration Documentation and Data Management Distribution Characterization Evaluation Enhancement

5. GRIN-Global GRIN = Germplasm Resources Information Network. http://www.ars-grin.gov/ The genebank information management system for the NPGS, and for Canada’s genebank system (GRIN-Canada). http://www.ars-grin.gov/ The Global Crop Diversity Trust asked ARS and Bioversity International (an International Agricultural Research Center) to enhance and expand GRIN to address global germplasm information management needs. In 2008, the Trust awarded ARS a 3-year, $1.4 million grant to develop GRIN-Global; ARS is devoting $900K in-kind support to the project. The project is now about ½ through its funding period, with promising progress achieved.

6. GRIN-Global Based on GRIN, but can be implemented in both a system-wide and “stand-alone” local management mode Supports multiple users via a “user-friendly” interface Maintains linkages with other databases and interoperates with existing systems Advanced querying, custom and third-party applications

7. Three Tier Architecture Business Tier (Web Service) Data Tier (MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server) Presentation Tier (Web Browser) Presentation Tier (Windows Desktop Client)

8. GRIN-Global On-line ordering/request capability Database-flexible, free of recurrent licensing costs, with interface and database schema source code open and available without restriction to further development Will become the global standard plant genebank information management system

9. Future Prospects

10. Some (but not all!) Key Challenges for the NPGS Managing and expanding NPGS operational capacity and infrastructure Fulfilling the demand for additional characterizations/evaluations Acquiring and conserving germplasm of wild crop relatives Managing genetic/genomic seed stocks Conserving germplasm of crop-associated microbes

11. Likely Trends for Crop Genetic Resources and their Management Static budgets? Increasing costs for managing PGR Larger PGR collections Increasing demand for PGR

12. Trends in demand for NPGS germplasm and information vs. NPGS budget

13. Result?: mismatch between expanding demand for PGR and static NPGS capacity to manage it

14. Priorities for Genetic Resource Management in Genebanks Acquisition Maintenance Regeneration Documentation and Data Management Distribution Characterization Evaluation Enhancement