Conserving the Gene Pool of Flowers

The three-year-old Ornamental Plant Germplasm Center (OPGC), in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the few genebanks in the world to focus on preserving flower genes. Floral genetic diversity is being lost as breeders focus on particular traits and natural populations are threatened by development.

Genes are collected by the centre primarily from wild sources, but heirloom varieties and rare specimens in personal plant collections are also included. Preserving the genes is important to the future of ornamental plant breeding and potentially future plant discoveries for medicinal or other economic uses.

OPGC is one of 25 genebanks in the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System, and stores seeds, bulbs, and tissue from plants found all over the world.

Internationally, floriculture is worth $50 billion (US) per year.

Link:

• Beautiful Flowers - It's All in Their Genes from USDA Agricultural Research Service


• Ornamental Plant Germplasm Center

Posted by Eric La Fountaine at 3:14 PM on October 13, 2004