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ARS Home » Plains Area » Fort Collins, Colorado » Center for Agricultural Resources Research » Agricultural Genetic Resources Preservation Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #416631

Research Project: Curation and Research to Safeguard and Expand Collections of Plant and Microbial Genetic Resources and Associated Descriptive Information

Location: Agricultural Genetic Resources Preservation Research

Title: Importance of the USDA-National Plant Germplasm System for climate-resilient agriculture

Author
item Volk, Gayle
item BRETTING, PETER - Retired ARS Employee

Submitted to: ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/1/2024
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: N/A

Technical Abstract: The USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) conserves 620,000+ accessions of plant genetic resources (PGR) of crops and crop wild relatives and annually distributes 200,000+ PGR samples globally. The NPGS PGR have been critical for the development of new cultivars that are tolerant to environmental extremes, resistant to pests and diseases, yield higher quality products, and can be incorporated into improved production systems. The NPGS PGR continue to play a key role in breeding and research to develop new agricultural production systems with greater resilience to extreme temperatures, precipitation, etc. As directed by the 2018 Farm Bill, an NPGS Strategic Plan was developed and released to address backlogs in PGR maintenance, characterization, and to enhance PGR utilization in research and breeding. The Strategic Plan, when funded, will result in: 1) More plant germplasm maintained disease-free, securely backed up, and readily available; 2) Expanded knowledge of the intrinsic genetic variation and high-value traits in NPGS collections; and 3) New plant germplasm with valuable traits acquired, safeguarded and developed.