ICRISAT’s genebank begins safekeeping exercise

ICRISAT’s genebank houses more than 129,000 accessions and has the world’s largest collections of pearl millet, sorghum, groundnut, chickpea, pigeon pea and small millets

ICRISAT’s genebank has begun sending copies of its large germplasm collection to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) as a backup, commonly referred to as first-level safety duplication. The first batch of 20,000 accessions of both sorghum and pearl millet was sent on December 27.

“I am pleased to note that this timely exercise has started with a large number of sorghum and millet accessions,” said Dr Jacqueline Hughes, Director General, ICRISAT. “The genebank has already safety duplicated more than 90 per cent of its collections in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.”

ICRISAT’s genebank houses more than 129,000 accessions and has the world’s largest collections of pearl millet, sorghum, groundnut, chickpea, pigeon pea and small millets.

“ICRISAT’s genebank is a treasure trove of traits and has helped breeders across the world improve both productivity and resilience of dryland crops. That apart, the genebank has helped restore many traditional varieties, also called landraces,” said Dr Rajeev Varshney, Research Program Director-Accelerated Crop Improvement at ICRISAT, to underscore the importance of conservation and duplication of germplasm resources.

Dr Kuldeep Singh, Head of the genebank at ICRISAT. Multi-level duplications are mandated by the Crop Trust, which supports and funds CGIAR genebanks through the Genebank Platform. Many genebanks across the world duplicate their germplasm in other genebanks.

“In the first batch, we sent 15,000 accessions of sorghum and 5,000 accessions of pearl millet. The second batch is being prepared to be sent to IITA by end of January next year,” Dr Singh informed.

ICRISAT’s genebank houses more than 129,000 accessions