Updated genebanks standards in six languages and quinoa descriptors now also in French

The final version of the updated genebank standards has been published and is available in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Russian from the FAO web site — and the new quinoa descriptors have been translated into French.

Updated descriptor list for quinoa

It’s the year of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) – and the old descriptor list from 1981 has been updated – and expanded to include also wild relatives of quinoa. Get the list here: www.bioversityinternational.org/

Updated genebank standards endorsed by CGRFA

The updated Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture were endorsed by the Commission for Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) at its Fourteenth Regular Session held from 15 – 19 April 2013. They update the FAO/IPGRI genebank standards which had been published in 1994. The updated Genebank Standards comprise standards for orthodox seeds, non-orthodox seeds and vegetatively propagated plants. The Standards are available from the following web site: www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/027/mf804e.pdf and shall be published in all UN languages.

International conference on: Capturing wild relative and landrace diversity for crop improvement

The PGR Secure consortium and the European Association for Research on Plant Breeding (EUCARPIA) have recently announced the joint international conference on utilization and conservation of crop wild relative (CWR) and landrace (LR) diversity for crop improvement.

The conference will be held at NIAB Innovation Farm, Cambridge, UK, 17-21 June 2014. Read more at www.pgrsecure.org/conference