ICAR-NBPGR organized an “International Training Program on Management of Plant Genetic Resources & Herbarium Management” at New Delhi from July 15 to 20, 2019.

ICAR-NBPGR organized an “International Training Program on Management of Plant Genetic Resources & Herbarium Management” at New Delhi from July 15 to 20, 2019. The trainees were sponsored by Directorate of Seed Testing and Certification Ministry of Agriculture, Baghdad, Republic of Iraq. The week-long training programme, under the HRD component, included lectures and practical-cum-demonstrations on germplasm conservation (different conservation strategies, seed health testing, tissue culture and cryo preservation techniques, PGR on bioinformatics and database management, operation and maintenance of genebank, IPR issues related to Plant Genetic Resources, Characterization and utilization of PGR) and herbarium management (herbarium methodology, preparation of the databases, application of the modern tools- molecular approach, chemotaxonomy, GIS mapping and digitization).
Participants were exposed to various facilities at ICAR- NBPGR such as National Genebank, in vitro & Cryo bank, Containment facility and Genomic Resources labs. A field visit was undertaken to demonstrate the strategic approach to the field-to-herbarium for collecting quality specimens. The course frame work and information imparted was well appreciated by the trainees.

(Source:  Dr Veena Gupta and Dr Anjula Pandey, ICAR-NBPGR, New Delhi)