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ABC Agricultural Business
Chamber
Landboubesigheidskamer
SAPBA
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Pre-breeding for effective use of plant genetic
resources
A new e-learning course
The Global
Partnership Initiative for Plant Breeding Capacity
Building (GIPB) is pleased to announce a new e-learning
course - Pre-breeding for Effective Use of Plant Genetic
Resources.
The importance of germplasm resources for crop
improvement is widely recognized by plant breeders.
However over reliance on ‘safe and familiar’ parents of
similar genetic backgrounds to provide genetic traits
has led to an unsustainably narrow genetic base in many
crop varieties and breeding materials.
To balance this, previously neglected pools of heritable
genetic variations need to be used to produce new and
improved crop varieties, for example, ones that give a
higher yield yet require fewer inputs. These kinds of
variations can be found, for example, in crop wild
relatives and local landraces.
Pre-breeding is the work to identify those desirable
traits and create materials that breeders can use.
Premised on close collaboration between genebank
curators and plant breeders, it is the necessary first
step in the use of diversity arising from wild relatives
and other unimproved materials.
The course is designed primarily for plant breeders and
germplasm curators but will be useful also to others
involved in capacity building in crop improvement. It
combines elements of both conventional germplasm
management and plant breeding with novel molecular
biology and analytical techniques.
This course was jointly sponsored by Bioversity
International, the
Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
and the
Global Crop Diversity Trust, using the GIPB
platform.
Click here to access the course or request a CD
version. Please note you will need to register to access
the course.
For more information about GIPB, visit the
web
site.
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