Progress of the Research on the Conservation of Crop Germplasm Resources in China

In the last 20 years, China has made considerable achievements in the conservation of crop germplasm resources. A network for crop germplasm conservation has been established by the end of 2002, which includes a national long-term seed genebank and its duplicated genebank, 8 national medium-term seed genebanks, 30 national field genebanks. 2 national in vitro genebanks, and 3 in situ conservation sites including 1 for wild soybean and 2 for wild rice. More than 334 000 crop germplasm accessions are currently stored in the national long-term genebank, covering 35 families, 192 genera and 712 species, which rank in the first place in the world. More than 43 000 accessions of vegetatively propagated crops and perennial crops covering more than 900 species are conserved in the national field genebanks. In addition, 2 300 accessions are stored in the national in vitro genebanks. This paper reviewed the latest advances of techniques for safety preservation of stored germplasm in seed genebank, ultra-dried seed storage and in vitro preservation in China and discussed current highlights in germplasm conservation.