What is germplasm storage?

Germplasm broadly refers to the hereditary material (total content of genes) transmitted to the offspring through germ cells. The very objective of germplasm conservation (or storage) is to preserve the genetic diversity of a particular plant or genetic stock for its use at any time in future.

What is germplasm conservation in plant tissue culture?

Germplasm conservation is the most successful method to conserve the genetic traits of endangered and commercially valuable species. Germplasm is a live information source for all the genes present in the respective plant, which can be conserved for long periods and regenerated whenever it is required in the future.

Can plant tissue culture be used for germplasm conservation?

In vitro conservation of plant germplasm as growing tissue cultures has potential as a means of conserving forms that cannot easily be kept as seeds, and for some species, the maintenance of cultured plantlets in slow growth is proving more efficient and less expensive than maintaining whole plants.

How is germplasm stored?

Germplasm or genetic resources are stored in the form of ‘seeds’ in a specialized place known as ‘gene bank’. Thus, a gene bank contains seeds (and not DNA/genes) of a plant species for future use. Collection of genetic resources at one place for use and distribution to others has a long history.

What is the objective of germplasm storage?

The very objective of germplasm conservation (or storage) is to preserve the genetic diversity of a particular plant or genetic stock for its use at any time in future.

What is the importance of germplasm conservation?

The main objective of germplasm conservation is to preserve the genetic diversity of selected plants or genetic stock for its utilization at any time in future.

Why there is a need of plant germplasm conservation?

Germplasm serves as the raw material for the breeder to produce various crops. Therefore, conservation of germplasm has importance in all breeding programmes. It is very crucial to conserve the endangered plants otherwise some of the important genetic traits possessed by the primitive plants may be lost.

What is germplasm plant breeding?

Germplasm are living genetic resources such as seeds or tissues that are maintained for the purpose of animal and plant breeding, preservation, and other research uses. Germplasm collections can range from collections of wild species to elite, domesticated breeding lines that have undergone extensive human selection.

What is the importance of germplasm diversity?

Germplasm collections can range from collections of wild species to elite, domesticated breeding lines that have undergone extensive human selection. Germplasm collection is important for the maintenance of biological diversity and food security.

What is common to the seed bank tissue culture and cryopreservation?

What is common to the seed banks, orchards, tissue culture and cryopreservation? All are in situ conservation methods. All are methods conservation of extinct organisms.

What is the importance of germplasm?

Germplasm, specifically plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, are the living material used by local communities, researchers, and breeders to adapt food and agricultural production to changing needs.

When did in vitro storage of germplasm start?

In vitro storage of germplasm was first suggested in the mid-1970s (Henshaw, 1975; Morel, 1975). Although whole plants can be regenerated from the cells of many plants (totipotent), the preservation of unorganized cultures, such as cell suspensions or callus, carries some risk of generating spontaneous somaclonal mutants.

How are germplasm resources used in the real world?

Horticultural propagation techniques as well as in vitro propagation methods have been developed for many plants and have extensive commercial use. In vitro cell and tissues cultures are providing new approaches to multiply germplasm resources and open opportunities for long-term cryopreservation.

Why is it important to conserve germplasm in plants?

Germplasm conservation is mainly aimed to ensure the proper preservation and storage of germplasm belonging to economically important plants (Gosal et al., 2010 ). Germplasm of agricultural crops having seeds are easily stored for longer time by lowering their water content.

What are the disadvantages of germplasm conservation?

Disadvantages, however, include the need for special facilities and trained technicians and the small amount of experience in the use of in vitro methods for germplasm conservation on a large scale. The following summary is drawn from recent reviews of the subject (Withers, 1985, 1986, 1991a,b)