NordGen is part of and arranges several different meetings and seminars for the Nordic stakeholders concerning plant genetic resources. After several years of pandemic restrictions, 2022 was again a year filled with many interesting meetings on site where the year's main event was the inauguration of the new house when many partners and stakeholders from the Nordic countries met in Alnarp.
However, during 2022 NordGen continued to experience an increased demand for knowledge on utilization of the plant genetic resources from public and private research programs, that reaches out to NordGen for collaboration within utilization of the genebank collection.
One such example is an extensive collaboration on the Nordic oat collection between NordGen, Oatly, Lantmännen and ScanOats. This project aims to increase knowledge about the oat collection, data that will make the collection easier to use for researchers and plant breeders that are interested to develop new oat varieties. In the project, all partners share the cost and information gained from genotyping (genetic characteristics investigated through DNA analyses). Therefore, 764 accessions (seed samples) of oats were sown in field during 2022. Read more in the chapter
Projects. International Collaboration
Preserving and distributing genetic resources requires international collaboration, and the foundation for this work is laid out in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), ratified by all the Nordic governments. To NordGen, as part of the global genebank community, international collaboration is crucial. Forums for this work is the Governing Body to the ITPGRFA and the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA), The European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR) and the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD.