Crop Genebank Knowledge Base

Registration

Registration of cultivated barley and wild relatives genetic resources

Contributors to this page: ICARDA, Syria (Ahmed Amri, Bilal Humeid, Kenneth Street, Natalya Rukhkyan, Jan Konopka, Siham Asaad, Adnan Omran and Fida Alô).

Verifying accompanying documentation

The following documentation should be verified for each consignment:

Germplasm Acquisition Agreements (GAA) and Standard Material Transfer Agreements (SMTA) from donor (legal documents needed for access).
Phyto-sanitary certificate from donor (a plant quarantine requirement).
Plant import permit (a local requirement).
GMO free certificate (it may be required by some countries like it is required in Syria).
List of material and seed source (essential data).
Passport data (preferred data).

Verifying the consignment

Check all packets against the list provided with the samples (for verification).
If no list is provided or seeds do not correspond with the list, prepare a list and send to donor/provider for confirmation and obtaining the proper data.
Check seeds for insect infestation or obvious signs of disease or damage during shipping (to avoid introduction of new pests and diseases and storing dead material).
- Isolate the infested/infected samples.
- Destroy when quarantine diseases and/or insects.
- Otherwise clean the seeds before storage using fumigation to control insects.
- If possible, ask donor to replace sample.

Recording information during registration

The following information must be recorded for each consignment:

Check genebank database for duplication, i.e. if the sample is already conserved in the genebank (to avoid conserving duplicates).
- If it is, assign a new seed lot under the original accession number (of suspected duplicate). The ‘duplication’ should be verified later (at first growth out and/or characterization).
- If sample appears ‘original’, assign a unique accession number.
Write the accession number clearly on the packet using a permanent marker.
For each accession enter all passport data (plus any other information if provided) in genebank database (to have a complete information on genebank accessions. Data enhances the value of the germplasm).

References and further reading

Centre for Genetic Resources (CGN). Material Acquisition Agreement betweeen CGN and the Government of Sierra Leone. CGN, Wageningen, Netherlands. [online]. Available from: http://documents.plant.wur.nl/cgn/pgr/ABSFocalPoint/documents/MAA_CGN_Sierra%20Leone.pdf

Centre for Genetic Resources (CGN). Material Acquisition Agreement. CGN, Wageningen, Netherlands. [online]. Available from: http://www.cgn.wur.nl/UK/CGN+Plant+Genetic+Resources/Approach/Material+acquisition+agreement/

IITA. Policy of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) on Intellectial Property. [online]. Available from: http://www.iita.org/cms/details/policy.pdf