The inventory was funded by the PGR Secure project - Novel characterization of crop wild relative and landrace resources as a basis for improved crop breeding

PGR Secure is funded under the EU Seventh Framework Programme THEME KBBE.2010.1.1-03, Grant agreement no. 266394 (coordinator: Dr. Nigel Maxted; University of Birmingham, UK)

The aim of the PGR Secure project is “to research novel characterization techniques and conservation strategies for European crop wild relative and landrace diversity, and further, to enhance crop improvement by breeders, as a means of underpinning European food security in the face of climate change” (see the webpage www.pgrsecure.org).

The PGR Secure project is organized in six work packages:

WP1 - Phenomics and genomics

WP2 - Informatics

WP3 - Crop wild relative conservation

WP4 - Landrace conservation

WP5 - Engaging the user community

WP6 - Dissemination and training

The Department of Applied Biology of the University of Perugia (UNIPG), Italy, is partner of the project.

The UNIPG’s research team: Prof. Valeria Negri (scientist in charge), Dr. Domizia Donnini, Dr. Daniela Gigante, Dr. Flavia Landucci, Dr. Luca Pacicco, Dr. Lorenzo Panella, Dr. Renzo Torricelli, Prof. Roberto Venanzoni.

Within the PGR Secure project the UNIPG’s team is mainly engaged in the development of conservation strategies for European crop wild relatives (CWR) and landraces (LR) in WP3 and WP4.

The Products of the team available from this cd-rom:

- the first Italian inventory of in situ maintained landraces. The creation of the landraces inventory represents a means of safeguarding them and of implementing conservation strategies. This landraces inventory is the result of the work on Plant Genetic Resource carried out by Italian Regions and Autonomous Provinces across the last two decades and reports data available at Jannuary 2013.

- Descriptors for web-enabled national in situ landrace inventories (see tools)

- Database for landrace information recording (see tools)

Other products of the team are:

- Italian Crop Wild Relative and Wild Harvested Plant checklist (CWR/WHP List). The Italian CWR and WHP checklist born as an integration and revision of the national checklist extracted from the CWR Catalogue for Europe and the Mediterranean (pgrforum.org/cwris - Kell et al. 2005). Available from vnr.unipg.it/PGRSecure.

- Italian prioritized inventory of Plant Genetic Resources (PList). A priority list of plant taxa important as plant genetic resources was realized by a prioritization process on the CWR/WHP List. Available from vnr.unipg.it/PGRSecure.