Update on ECPGR

Lorenzo Maggioni ECPGR Secretariat

Second meeting of a Working Group on Leafy vegetables – 8-9 October 2013, Ljubljana, Slovenia

ECPGR - www.ecpgr.cgiar.org

A cooperative programme for conservation and use of PGR in Europe for breeding and research

Eight Phases (1980-2013)

43 member countries - owners

- contributing funds and

implementing activities

- coordination within country

Phase VIII (2009-2013)

5-year budget: € 2.76 M (funded by European countries)

4 priority areas – Task sharing and capacity building (AEGIS)

(top priority) – Documentation and Information – Characterization and evaluation – In situ and On-farm conservation and

management

ECPGR Structure

- ExCo (Chair + 4)

Leafy vegetables WG – Phase VIII

Budget allocation: € 21 360

Planned activities:

• Vegetable Network meeting (Catania 2009)

• Second meeting of the leafy vegetables WG

(Ljubljana 2013) - € 13,520

• Molecular characterization protocol for lettuce - € 7,840

ECPGR towards Phase IX (13th SC meeting, Vienna 2012)

• Phase IX of ECPGR will be launched (2014-2018) with an approved budget of 2,5 M Euro

• New objectives (logframe to be completed)

• New operational structure

• New rules of procedure and terms of reference of ECPGR bodies

• Secretariat to be hosted by the Global Crop Diversity Trust in Bonn, Germany, as of 1 January 2014 2016

• EURISCO to be hosted by IPK, Gatersleben, Germany (2014)

http://eurisco.ecpgr.org

• Provides information about ex situ plant

collections maintained in Europe

• Based on a European network of 43 ex situ

National Inventories (NIs)

• Current content: passport data on > 1.1 million

samples from > 300 collections

EURISCO – Coordination (Phase VII)

• Help desk function

• 4 country seminars trained 113 people.

• 1 regional workshop trained 30 National Focal Points

• > 900 taxonomy and geo-reference reports sent back to countries to highlight errors and inconsistencies

• E-bulletins, factsheets, presentations

EURISCO – Development (Phase VIII)

• New descriptors (AEGIS, MLS)

• Upgraded Web site search and downloading functions

• Taxonomy searches include synonyms

• Taxonomy and geo-reference reports available in real time on countries upload pages

• Road map for the inclusion of C&E data

• Database backbone system under re-development to allow upload of C&E data

• Data comparative analysis of EURISCO vs. WIEWS vs. CCDBs to identify gaps in EURISCO

• Transfer to IPK, Gatersleben foreseen in early 2014

Characterization & Evaluation data

A concept to include C&E data in EURISCO, developed by the ECPGR Documentation and Information Network

(see http://www.epgris3.eu/):

• Simple exchange format containing: Experiment; Trait; Genotype; Score in order to gather whatever non-standardized C&E data already exists

• Uploading mechanism (aligned with current EURISCO upload mechanism)

• Downloading mechanism (to be adapted to different user group needs)

National Focal Point

regional

global

national

CGIAR / SINGER

NLD ISL NOR DNK SWE FIN USA

CGN GRIN NGB

DEU

BLE

FRA

BRG

RUS

VIR

....

NFPs/NIs..

CAN

North America / GRIN

Institutes IPK JKI others

Existing information infrastructure (global)

Global-IS, Treaty Art 17

GENESYS

Europe / EURISCO

An update on the

establishment of

A European Genebank

Integrated System

Lorenzo Maggioni & Jan Engels - ECPGR Secretariat

AEGIS objective

• To create A European Genebank Integrated

System for plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, aimed at conserving the genetically unique and important accessions for Europe and making them available for breeding and research. Such material will be safely conserved under conditions that ensure genetic integrity and viability in the long term.

Key components

• MOU (Memorandum of Understanding)

• European Collection

• AQUAS (Quality System)

AEGIS membership status 1. Albania (06 May 2009) - Associate Members 2. Austria (05 December 2012) 3. Azerbaijan (16 July 2009) - Associate Members 4. Belarus (02 November 2011) - Associate Members 5. Belgium (01 June 2012) - Associate Members 6. Bosnia and Herzegovina (19 May 2010) 7. Bulgaria (02 December 2009) - Associate Members 8. Croatia (02 December 2009) - Associate Members 9. Cyprus (15 September 2012) - Associate Members 10. Czech Republic (23 July 2009) - Associate Members 11. Denmark (22 February 2010) - Associate Members 12. Estonia (22 May 2009) - Associate Members 13. Finland (02 December 2009) - Associate Members 14. Georgia (18 May 2009) - Associate Members 15. Germany (05 November 2009) - Associate Members 16. Hungary (22 November 2011) - Associate Members 17. Iceland (22 October 2010) 18. Ireland (22 July 2009) 19. Latvia (01 June 2012) 20. Lithuania (12 October 2010) 21. Montenegro (16 December 2010) 22. Netherlands (28 May 2009) - Associate Members 23. Norway (17 August 2009) - Associate Members 24. Poland (17 May 2010) 25. Portugal (20 November 2009) 26. Romania (14 April 2010) - Associate Members 27. Slovakia (17 June 2009) - Associate Members 28. Slovenia (21 September 2009) - Associate Members 29. Sweden (31 May 2011) - Associate Members 30. Switzerland (27 July 2009) - Associate Members 31. Turkey (14 November 2011) - Associate Members 32. Ukraine (30 April 2009) 33. United Kingdom (18 June 2010) - Associate Members

53 Associate Membership Agreements

http://aegis.cgiar.org/

The European Collection

• The European Collection will consist of dispersed accessions, i.e. a virtual European genebank

• Through signing the MOU countries accept responsibility for European Accessions: • Long-term conservation according to quality standards

• Availability through Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA)

• Safety-duplication

• Working Groups are responsible for: • Oversight over the Selection of European Accessions*

• Establishment of crop-specific quality standards

• Preparation of crop conservation/management strategies

The European collection today

Selection of European Accessions: an evolutionary process

8 WGs have agreed on selection procedures. 4 WGs have first lists of approx. 4000 selected candidate accessions

Germany (IPK) offered about 20 000, the Netherlands (CGN) 5864, Czech Rep. 394

The European collection today

11 524 accessions

Lactuca: 1130

Cichorium: 110

Spinacia: 169

Asparagus: 6

Cynara: 6

Selection procedure for the European Accessions -1

Up to now we have promoted two complementary approaches as part of a “simplified selection procedure”:

1. Selection of Most Appropriate Accessions by WGs based on their own selection criteria

2. Offers by countries based on country of origin and uniqueness

Selection procedure for the European Accessions - 2

It has become increasingly clear that the proposed steps were heavily leaning on two wrong assumptions:

1) Availability of sufficient data available in EURISCO and the Central Crop Databases

2) The various parties involved would be able to quickly respond and agree on proposed candidate accessions

Selection procedure - A new proposal

Bring to completion ongoing exercises, whenever WGs are close to reach good results

Additionally, a new proposal from the Secretariat:

1) Countries to play the central role.

2) Working Groups to assume a supervisory and

monitoring role

Further Simplified Selection Procedure - 1

1) Associate Member institutes/genebanks recommend to National Coordinators a list of accessions they maintain, for inclusion into the European Collection.

2) National Coordinator considers the recommendations and makes the final decision, ensuring that the established conservation and availability conditions will be met.

3) Accessions are flagged in EURISCO as part of the European Collection

4) The Working Groups maintain the technical oversight over the comprehensiveness of the European Crop Collection, the existence of possible gaps, monitor the management of the Crop Collection, including adherence to the AEGIS quality system (AQUAS) and prepare annual workplans for regeneration and other activities that should be coordinated at the European or sub-regional level.

Further Simplified Selection Procedure - 2

Respect the Selection Requirements agreed by the SC

Consider as a priority those accessions that have originated in the country and apply other considerations that would indicate the uniqueness of the accessions.

In case of evident duplications that would be noted at any subsequent stage, it is suggested that the two holding genebanks agree on the final status of the duplicates, including the possibility of declaring one accession as the original and the other as a safety duplicate.

Selection criteria

AEGIS Quality System (AQUAS)

Quality assurance based on the principles:

– Say what you do

– Do what you say

– Let an independent body check that you do

what you say

– Correct and improve what you say you do

AQUAS principles

• Consensus

• Agreed minimum standards

• Capacity building

• As little bureaucratic as possible

• Monitoring system (not policing, but guiding and advisory approach)

AEGIS Quality System (AQUAS)

1) Template for operational genebank manual

(approved by the AEGIS Advisory Committee and

available from AEGIS web site)

– All Associate member institutes are

encouraged and expected to compile it and

upload it on AEGIS Web site

– 5 genebank manuals are online

AEGIS Quality System (AQUAS)

2) Generic operational genebank standards

a) Combined effort with FAO to develop generic

operational genebank standards; active ECPGR

participation in the process

b) Generic standards on seed, field and in vitro/

cryopreservation genebanks approved by FAO

Commission in April 2013

3) Agreed minimum crop-specific technical standards (complementing generic standards)

• 6 WGs have agreed on crop-specific standards for one or more routine operations (using FAO standards as reference)

4) An AEGIS Safety-duplication Policy has been approved by SC

5) An AEGIS Distribution Guideline is in preparation

6) Record keeping, monitoring and reporting • Under development

AEGIS Quality System (AQUAS)

Proposed action points

1. Agree on next steps for inclusion of accessions in the European Collection

2. Agree on crop-specific standards, compatibly with FAO genebank standards.

The end