Management and distribution of experimental data from prebreeding projects is important to ensure uptake of germplasm into breeding and research programs. Being able to access and share this data in standard formats is essential. The adoption of a common informatics platform for crops that may have limited resources brings economies of scale, allowing common informatics components to be used across multiple species. The close integration of such a platform with commonly used breeding software, visualization, and analysis tools reduces the barrier for entry to researchers and provides a common framework to facilitate collaborations and data sharing. This work presents significant updates to the Germinate platform and highlights its value in distributing prebreeding data for 14 crops as part of the project ‘Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change: Collecting, Protecting and Preparing Crop Wild Relatives’ (hereafter Crop Trust Crop Wild Relatives project) led by the Crop Trust (https://www.cwrdiversity.org). The addition of data on these species compliments data already publicly available in Germinate. We present a suite of updated Germinate features using examples from these crop species and their wild relatives. The use of Germinate within the Crop Trust Crop Wild Relatives project demonstrates the usefulness of the system and the benefits a shared informatics platform provides. These data resources provide a foundation on which breeding and research communities can develop additional online resources for their crops, harness new data as it becomes available, and benefit collectively from future developments of the Germinate platform.

Changing climates and associated increased variability pose risks to alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) cultivation, with the requirement to establish, survive, and maintain production under water stress. Crop wild relatives (CWR) of alfalfa include populations that have evolved to survive in a number of different, extreme environments, but until recently have had limited use in breeding programs. Here we report on the phenotypic diversity of alfalfa crop wild relatives that were selected to represent extremes in drought tolerance (by sourcing germplasm from environments with extremes in low rainfall, high temperature, shallow soils, and winter freezing) with the aim of providing germplasm with drought tolerance and improved forage yield traits for breeding programs in both warm and cool dry temperate environments. Newly formed hybrids created between M. sativa, M. arborea L. (a woody shrub), and M. truncatula Gaertn. (an annual species from the Mediterranean region) were developed or acquired to introduce new genetic diversity from the tertiary genepool. Preliminary characterization and evaluation was used for taxonomic classification, and to identify wild accessions and pre‐bred (hybrid) lines that offer new diversity for growth habit, seed size, fall dormancy, and forage yield. The accessions and pre‐breeding lines described have been donated to the Australian Pastures Genebank for conservation and distribution.

The Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change Project set out to improve the diversity, quantity, and accessibility of germplasm collections of crop wild relatives (CWR). Between 2013 and 2018, partners in 25 countries, heirs to the globetrotting legacy of Nikolai Vavilov, undertook seed collecting expeditions targeting CWR of 28 crops of global significance for agriculture. Here, we describe the implementation of the 25 national collecting programs and present the key results. A total of 4587 unique seed samples from at least 355 CWR taxa were collected, conserved ex situ, safety duplicated in national and international genebanks, and made available through the Multilateral System (MLS) of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Plant Treaty). Collections of CWR were made for all 28 targeted crops. Potato and eggplant were the most collected genepools, although the greatest number of primary genepool collections were made for rice. Overall, alfalfa, Bambara groundnut, grass pea and wheat were the genepools for which targets were best achieved. Several of the newly collected samples have already been used in pre-breeding programs to adapt crops to future challenges.

The phenotypic diversity and productivity of a diverse alfalfa (M. sativa subspp.) panel of cultivars, landraces and wild relatives with putative drought tolerance were evaluated in two Mediterranean environments (central Chile and Southern Australia). In Chile, 70 accessions were evaluated in rainfed conditions and in Australia 30 accessions under rainfed and irrigated conditions, during three growing seasons. Large phenotypic variation was observed among and within subspecies for NDVI, stem length, intercepted PAR and forage yield. Principal component analysis indicated that the first two principal components (PC) accounted for 84.2% of total variance; fall dormancy, taxa, and breeding status were closely related to the agronomical performance of alfalfa accessions. Forage yield varied largely among accessions across years and locations. A linear relationship was found between annual forage yield and annual water added to the experiments (R² = 0.60, p < 0.001). The GxE analysis for forage yield allowed the detection of the highest yielding accessions for each of the two mega-environments identified. The accessions CTA002 and CTA003 showed greater forage yield in both Chile and Australia environments. It is concluded that new breeding lines derived from crosses between cultivated alfalfa (M. sativa subsp. sativa) and wild relatives belonging to the primary (M. sativa subsp. falcata) and tertiary (M. arborea) gene pool, achieve outstanding agronomical performance in drought-prone environments.

Tetraploid plants, including those induced from diploid barrel medic (Medicago truncatula Gaertn.) and the snail medic [Medicago scutellata (L.) Mill.], have the potential to increase vigor and leaf size to improve adaptation to environments with low and variable rainfall in Mediterranean climates. The growth of tetraploid lines induced from barrel medic cultivar Sultan‐SU was evaluated against the diploid parent line and a natural tetraploid snail medic cultivar Sava in field conditions in Adelaide, South Australia. In field conditions, tetraploid lines had up to 106% greater autumn biomass than Sultan‐SU, 58% larger seed weight, and a 127% increase in leaf area. In a controlled environment experiment, snail medic Sava was the only entry to show improved early season (assessed at 6 wk) shoot biomass and canopy cover under short days and low temperatures that were designed to simulate a late start to the growing season. An examination of fresh flower buds showed that the fertility and stability of induced tetraploid lines varied between lines and generations. Hardseed breakdown patterns differed among tetraploid mutant lines, with two lines having much harder seed than Sultan‐SU. Some tetraploid Medicago spp. produced greater early biomass and larger leaves than diploids. Increasing ploidy level provides plant breeders with a promising tool in the development of new cultivars better suited to future climate scenarios.

The persistence and productivity of a diverse range of Medicago sativa germplasm including representatives of subspecies sativa, caerulea, falcata and varia were examined at 3 field sites in south-eastern Australia over 4 years. Sites were located at Tamworth, Barmedman and Hamilton, forming a 1200 km north–south transect with rainfall distribution varying from predominantly summer dominant in the north to winter dominant at the most southerly site. Several entries of subspecies varia and caerulea had herbage yields and persistence equivalent to that of M. sativa subspecies sativa cultivar Sceptre, a highly winter-active type that was used as a standard. The cultivar Cancreep, a cross of M. falcata and M. sativa, had a total yield over 3 years equivalent to 84–91% of Sceptre at the 2 sites where it was sown. Individual lines of subspecies varia demonstrated good persistence under grazing and were ranked 2nd and 6th out of 35 accessions for frequency in year 4 at Barmedman, the driest site, and 5th, 7th and 9th out of 33 accessions at Tamworth, the more summer-dominant rainfall site. Entries of subspecies falcata were among the least productive and persistent. The study indicated that germplasm from subspecies caerulea and varia offered hitherto unexploited potential for selection as persistent and drought-tolerant perennial legume alternatives to M. sativa for extensive low management grazing systems of south-eastern Australia.