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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Madison, Wisconsin » Vegetable Crops Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #107459

Title: THE INTER-GENEBANK POTATO DATABASE AND THE DIMENSIONS OF AVAILABLE WILD POTATO GERMPLASM

Author
item HUAMAN, ZOSIMO - INTNL POTATO CTR PERU
item HOEKSTRA, ROEL - GRM-DTCH POTATO CTR NETHL
item Bamberg, John

Submitted to: American Journal of Potato Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/18/2000
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: There are six major genebanks around the world that keep potato genetic resources. These sites provide raw materials for potato basic research and breeding. Until the recent formation of the Association of Potato Intergenebank Collaborators (APIC), there had been little organized cooperation between them. The first goal of APIC was to produce a comprehensive database of all wild potato stocks held in the various genebanks. That database, now released and accessible via the Internet, is described in this publication. This comprehensive database provides a uniquely valuable resource in several ways. It allows anyone to see exactly where specific items are preserved. It reveals the world status of vulnerability (i.e., if some particularly valuable stocks are kept in only one location). Joining data from various sources gave all genebanks the sum of all available information, and often revealed mistakes that were then corrected. It showed the world situation for collecting: Which geographic origins and species were over-represented or underrepresented in the genebanks. Having established a joint format for basic identifiers, it was relatively easy to append evaluation data gathered by each genebank over several decades. APIC continues to make an impact on potato science with collaborative collecting, technology exchange and research on the management of genetic diversity. These efforts are improving the management of potato genetic resources, one of the key foundations of future improved varieties.

Technical Abstract: The Association of Potato Inter-genebank Collaborators (APIC) made an effort to put together a database of all wild potato holdings of the most important potato genebanks in Europe, the USA, Peru and Argentina. The outcome was the Inter-genebank Potato Database (IPD) containing data of 11,819 wild potato accessions conserved in seven potato genebanks. The collectors number was the key identification number used to merge all databases into the IPD. A total of 7,112 different wild potato accessions were identified which comprise 5,306 accessions with known collectors numbers. About 60 percent of the accessions comprise only 20 taxa represented by 785 to 92 accessions each. On the other extreme, 2 percent of the accessions comprise 72 taxa and are represented by 5 to 1 accessions each. About 70 taxa are not available in genebanks. The IPD evaluation database comprises 5,603 records with data from more than 33,000 evaluations of wild potato accessions. The number of traits covered are 55 including the reactions to species, pathotypes, races or strains of 12 fungi, 4 bacteria, 12 viruses, 1 viroid, 13 nematodes, and 7 insects; response to heat and cold stress; and content of dry matter, starch, vitamin C, amylase, reducing sugars, and glycoalkaloids. The IPD database is available on the Internet at (URL:http://intranet.cip.cgiar.org/ipd.htm,Username:CIP_LIMA\CIP-INTE RGENE sword: user (in lowercase).