Diverse innovative germplasm collections for maize, tomato and barley have been carefully selected by CAPITALISE partners. These include crop varieties, landraces, and crop wild relatives, and are derived from materials already available to CAPITALISE partners as well as those sourced outside of the consortia.
For germplasm collections, the concerned partners have managed seed multiplication and seed circulation. This entailed conducting multiplication fields in Italy, Israel, and Ethiopia to scale up the availability of seeds to support multiple and mirrored phenotyping experiments.
The maize germplasm collection includes a multiparental population (MAIZE-MPP) and associated metadata, provided by SSSA. In addition, maize chlorophyll mutant plants from international collections (MAIZE-MUT), have been sourced by CEA, and a set of landraces from the local genebank (MAIZE-LANDRACES), characterized by IPK. Read more here.
SSSA in Pisa has successfully regenerated around 600 MAGIC maize lines this summer to increase seed availability for future experiments. Reproducing maize requires covering male and female flowers and conducting controlled pollinations to maintain genetic purity of the lines. Although the weather was mostly good, some very hot days and even thunderstorms that knocked over a few plants made it a challenging feat.
Controlled pollination of maize lines by the SSSA team
A large collection of barley wild lines (BARLEY-B1K) have been provided by ARO and advanced we have the production of a multiparental, cytoplasmic swap population (BARLEY-CMPP). Chlorophyll mutants (BARLEY-MUT) have been identified by CEA and ARO and are now being characterized. Read more here.
In the summer of 2021 ARARI, in Ethiopia, reproduced iMAGIC barley lines. They have advanced around 1700 recombinant inbred lines from an Ethiopian derived multiparental population of Barley (BARLEY-MPP). Lines have been planted in Sirinka and Geregera (Amhara region) for reproduction.
Reproduction of Barley lines in Ethiopia
The tomato germplasm comprises of a set of backcross inbred lines (TOMATO-BILs) and chlorophyll mutants (TOMATO-MUT), provided by HUJ. In addition, HUJ has provided a collection of around 10000 TOMATO-LR varieties and breeding lines from around the world. Read more here
