Purpose
Subprogramme (SP1) explores the genetic and phenotypic diversity in crop germplasm, and – in some instances – also conducts wide hybridisation in order to broaden the base of breeding populations.

Overview and rationale

Summary of results in 2009
In 2009, the first of SP1’s five themes, which addresses the structure of diversity, focused on refining data quality in order to derive genetic stocks to serve as core reference materials for a genetic resource support service (GRSS). Arrangements were made with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) to start the GRSS with chickpea and sorghum. Meanwhile, broader studies in maize and rice highlighted the value of mining genotypic variation outside the areas of origin of the crops. Theme 2 concerns high-throughput genotyping. In 2009, the DArT marker technology was made accessible to the least advanced crops such as sweet potatoes and pigeonpeas and was intensified for a few advanced crops such as potatoes, leading to very low costs per data point. The third theme aims to develop a platform for describing drought tolerance. Drought-related phenotyping of the reference sets has continued on sorghum, wheat, rice and maize, as well as for groundnuts, cowpeas, common beans and chickpeas, both for characterising the diversity of plant behaviours under drought and for identifying ‘donors’ of specific traits. Theme 4 draws genetic information from association studies between genotypic and phenotypic data, which require important data analysis. Finally, Theme 5 implements new approaches to sustain the contribution of collections to crop improvement. Broad elite-based populations are being generated in sorghum and rice, whereas interspecific substitution materials are being advanced for rice, barley, wheat and groundnuts.

For summaries of SP1 results from previous years, as well as full reports on yearly progress, please see GCP’s Annual reports