L. Maggioni

MORE EFFICIENT CONSERVATION AND USE OF VEGETABLE GENETIC RESOURCES IN EUROPE: ECPGR ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERSPECTIVES

The European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR) is a regional network funded by the European countries and coordinated by Bioversity International. The Vegetables Network with representatives of 42 countries, is one of the crop specific ECPGR networks (http://www.ecpgr.cgiar.org/ networks/vegetables.html). It consists of six Working Groups (WGs), i.e., on Allium, Brassica, Cucurbits, Leafy Vegetables, Solanaceae and Umbellifer Crops. Sharing responsibilities for the ex situ conservation of European vegetable crops genetic resources is the highest priority of the Vegetables Network. It is foreseen that the rationalization of the collections will lead to higher cost-efficiency, and improvement of plant genetic resources documentation and quality. These efforts will be continued within the framework of the AEGIS initiative (A European Genebank Integrated System) (http://www.aegis.cgiar.org/). Challenges for the Vegetables Network include the identification of the so-called Most Appropriate Accessions (MAA) for each crop for their inclusion in the decentrally managed European Collection, and the development of agreed crop specific technical standards for conservation. Achievements of the Network in recent years include the development of European Central Crop Databases (ECCDBs), quality standards for collection man-agement of seed-propagated crops and cryopreserved material, safety duplication improvement and definition of minimum characterization descriptors. Several EU-funded projects have initiated and accelerated the activities of the WGs. Apart from further improvements within the framework of AEGIS, the Network is planning a number of other initiatives, such as improving collaboration at the global level (Allium), developing molecular characterization protocols (lettuce), filling the gaps in the conservation of wild relatives (Brassica and Umbellifer Crops), and improving the Network’s communication with the scientific community and the public at large.

The ECP/GR Cucurbitaceae Working Group

Cucurbits include various crops used as food all over the world, the most economically important being melons, cucumbers, watermelons and pumpkins. Cucurbit genetic resources are necessary for breeders, given the high susceptibility shown by these crops to many pathogens. The European Cooperative Programme for Crop Genetic Resources Networks (ECP/GR) is promoting the coordination of cucurbit genetic resources activities in Europe in order to increase and facilitate their conservation and use. The establishment of the Cucurbits Working Group (CWG) was proposed and formally approved by the ECP/GR Steering Committee in October 2003. The first activity of the CWG was the establishment of the European Central Cucurbits Database (ECCUDB), managed by the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain). It is known that 28,647 accessions are currently being stored in European institutions, of which 13,641 correspond to Cucumis genus, 7546 to Cucurbita genus and 6892 to Citrullus genus. Completion of the ECCUDB, including characterization and evaluation data, establishment of standard protocols for regeneration, definition of the minimum descriptor list for each crop and the planning of safety-duplication of each collection under long-term conservation conditions were defined as priority tasks for the Group. A project is being submitted to the EU call for proposals AGRI GEN RES 2005 to give impetus to the activities of the Working Group.