National Seed Genebank
Abstract
In this article, National Seed Genebank collections and activities are summarized. Biodiversity is literally the diversity of life. Biodiversity supports human societies ecologically, economically, culturally and spiritually. Plant genetic resources in food systems provide the foundation of crop development and food security and promote resistance and resilience to environmental stresses including pests and diseases of crops. Loss of agricultural biodiversity can therefore threaten health, livelihood sustainability and our future security of food and nutrition. Despite their importance, ecosystems are being degraded and species and genetic diversity reduced at a devastating rate due to the impact of growing human population and increasing resource consumption rates. To protect biological diversity ex-situ and in-situ protection activities are conducted as programmes that complement each other. Ex situ conservation is the technique of conservation of all levels of biological diversity outside their natural habitats through different techniques like gene banks, botanical garden, seed banks, field gene banks, etc. Ex situ conservation activities have been carried out in our country since 1964. It is still on process within the framework of the “National Program on Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources/Diversity”. Today, about 59,000 materials over about 3,300 species are kept in the National Gene Bank. The national collection contain the landraces, local types, wild and weedy relatives, other wild species which are especially economically important plant and endemic species. The main users of the national gene bank collections are the plant breeders and researchers.
Keywords
References
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Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
-
Journal Section
Review
Authors
Lerzan Aykas
This is me
Türkiye
Necla Taş
This is me
Türkiye
Neşe Adanacıoğlu
Türkiye
Erdinç Oğur
This is me
Türkiye
Umut Özer
Türkiye
Publication Date
December 21, 2016
Submission Date
July 20, 2016
Acceptance Date
-
Published in Issue
Year 2016 Volume: 26 Number: 2