Genebanking Fruit & Veg
Dive into the diversity of genebanking with this Plant Network webinar!
Featuring:
Dr Charlotte Allender is Head of the UK Vegetable Genebank (UKVGB). Genetic diversity underpins the development of crop varieties we need for food production, particularly in the context of farming systems that use fewer inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides and irrigation. Crops that are more resilient can be developed through using the diversity present across the whole crop genepool, including that of wild species related to crops. A key project is the UK Vegetable Genebank, a collection of thousands of samples of seed from a range of vegetable crops such as carrot, onion, lettuce and brassicas like cauliflower and cabbage.
Dr Matt Ordidge is Scientific Curator for the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale. As part of a project funded by Defra, the University is responsible for maintaining and curating the collection along with our project partners the Farm Advisory Services Team (FAST). The National Fruit Collection contains over 3,500 named cultivars of apple, pear, plum, cherry, bush fruit, vine, and cob nut. In line with Defra’s commitments to protecting plant genetic resources, we aim to maintain the collection as a genetic resource and increase its value for use in future breeding programmes.
Time :12:30 BST
