Germplasm Resources Unit (GRU)

April 2013 Focus on Biodiversity

There is a special feature on the GRU and its links with breeders in the Spring issue of Plant Breeding Matters (information from the British Society of Plant Breeders).

Feburary 2013 New GRU Germplasm Manager

We are pleased to announce a new member of the GRU team. Dr Adrian Turner is a new Germplasm manager who will lead the development of our stock validation programme targeted primarily on specialist stocks where molecular marker and phenotype checks will provide valuable quality assurance to our operations and resources.

February 2013 GRU You Tube Channel tops 1000 views across 63 countries

In just under 6 months the 5 GRU information resource videos on guides to crossing in wheat and peas and explanations of different aspects of our work. The highest figures being for the UK, USA, India, Australia, Canada and with remarkably good figures from across South America and the Middle and Far East. We are delighted that these resources are proving useful to so many and will be adding more over the course of the year.

January 2013 New wheat resources from the Bristol Wheat Genomic Group

We are pleased to announce that following discussions with Prof. Keith Edwards at the University of Bristol, the GRU is set to become the stock distribution centre for seed of the high density mapping and exome capture targeted resequencing lines for the Bristol Group. The material is currently being multiplied under glass and will be available from the GRU from late summer 2013.

December 2012

Welcome to our new Germplasm Resources Unit website.This site is still under development but we felt we wanted to share some of the new functionality and features with our users sooner rather than later. We have introduced a range of new pages, features and funtionality which we intend to build on further. If you have any comments on the new desig , we would be pleased to hear from you. Please email comments to Mike Ambrose (mike.ambrose@jic.ac.uk). Also, don't forget to subscribe to our e-newsletter Seed Bank News

July 2012

The GRU is involved in training and advising on procedures relating to germplasm management and related activities. We are aware that there is potentially a much wider audience for such resources so we have started to produce a range of practical guides which we are making available via the web.

The John Innes Centre is custodian of a number of key germplasm collections which serves academic, industrial and non-industrial groups both within the UK and internationally. They are the subject of research in their own right as well as being involved in a range of collaborative programmes and genetic resources networks.

The collections housed within a purpose built facility maintained at 1.5°C and 10%RH with some 600m³ of storage capacity.

Material from the collections is available on request to research, academic and commercial companies subject to availability. Material is also available for educational displays and demonstrations.

All materials are sent out accompanied by a material transfer agreement (MTA), the specific version being dependent on the particular material in question. The main public collections (JI Pisum collection and the BBSRC Small Grain Cereals Collections) form part of the UK’ contribution to the Multilateral System (MLS) of the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). The MTA issued for the use of these resources is the standard MTA of the ITPGRFA. This MTA outlines the conditions of use and responsibilities of the recipient and should be kept for records. Please not that passing on the material to further parties is done so under the same terms as they were received. Please email with any queries and for details of other agreements.

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Seed Bank News is produced by the Germplasm Resources Unit (GRU) at the John Innes Centre as a further channel of communication with our user community and raise awareness of recent activities and to flag the work of the collections and what we can offer.

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