Sorghum anthracnose is a highly variable pathogen and occurs in most sorghum producing regions worldwide. The disease can be managed using resistant varieties, but additional sources of resistance are needed for sorghum improvement. Germplasm collections are an important resource for the identification of host plant resistance and the 132 sorghum landraces from the Sikasso region of Mali were i...

This study describes the genetic diversity and population structure of 194 native maize populations from 23 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The germplasm, representing 131 distinct landraces, was genetically characterized as population bulks using 28 SSR markers. Three main groups of maize germplasm were identified. The first, the Mexico and Southern Andes group, highlights the Pr...

BACKGROUND The idea that knowledge flows through social networks is implicit in research on traditional knowledge, but researchers have paid scant attention to the role of social networks in shaping its distribution. We bridge those two bodies of research and investigate a) the structure of network of exchange of plant propagation material (germplasm) and b) the relation between a person's cent...

Flavonol glycosides in tea leaves have been quantified as aglycones, quercetin, myricetin, and kaempferol. Occurrence of the said compounds was reported in fruits and vegetable for a long time in association with the antioxidant potential. However, data on flavonols in tea were scanty and, hence, this study aims to envisage the flavonol content in a representative pool of accessions present in ...

This study was conducted to evaluate the resistance of 212 accessions of lettuce germplasm to gray mold disease caused by Botrytis cinerea. The lettuce germplasm were composed of five species: Lactuca sativa (193 accessions), L. sativa var. longifolia (2 accessions), L. sativa var. crispa (2 accessions), L. saligna (2 accessions), and L. serriola (1 accession); majority of these originated from...

The USDA-ARS National Clonal Germplasm Repository (NCGR) stores the global diversity of Humulus for the US Plant Germplasm System as trellised plants in a field genebank. In vitro storage and cryopreservation are now considered excellent ways to provide medium and long-term storage for plant collections. Developing a new cryopreservation or cold storage protocol for every accession or genus of ...

China has a large barley germplasm collection which has not been well characterized and is therefore underutilized. The Bmy1 locus encoding the β-amylase enzyme on chromosome 4H has been well characterized in the worldwide barley germplasm collections due to its importance in the malting and brewing industry. The Bmy1 locus was chosen as an indicator to understand genetic potential for improvem...

The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) is a crop of great importance in developing countries, as a food staple, for animal feed, and potentially for biofuel. Development of cultivars adapted to specific regions within these countries would be useful. To start a breeding program, the first step is the establishment of a germplasm bank. We initiated a sweet potato germplasm bank with accessions co...

Commercial plantations of pejibaye (Bactris gasipaes Kunth, Palmae) are expanding in tropical America to supply the heart-of-palm market. The heart-of-palm is a gourmet vegetable composed of the tender unexpanded leaves in the palm's crown. Both spiny and spineless germplasm is available to growers, but there are no clear data on the superiority of either. Comparisons made among populations, am...

Castor (Ricinus communis L.) is an important non-edible oilseed crop that can potentially be used as feedstock for biodiesel production. There are 1033 accessions in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) castor germplasm collection. The range of oil content in these accessions has never been surveyed. For exploiting castor as a feedstock for biodiesel production, the entire USDA ca...