Genebank management is a field in its own right; it is multifaceted, requiring a diverse set of skills and knowledge. Seed physiology is one area that is critical to the successful operation of seed genebanks, requiring understanding of seed quality during development and maturation, seed dormancy and germination, and seed longevity in storage of the target species. Careful management of the workflow between these activities, as seeds move from harvest to storage, and the recording and management of all relevant associated data, is key to ensuring the effective conservation of plant genetic resources. This review will discuss various aspects of seed physiology that genebank managers should be aware of, to ensure appropriate decisions are made about the handling and management of their seed collections.

The international collections of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) hosted by 11 CGIAR Centers are important components of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s global system of conservation and use of PGRFA. They also play an important supportive role in realizing Target 2.5 of the Sustainable Development Goals. This paper analyzes CGIAR genebanks’ trends in acquiring and distributing PGRFA over the last 35 years, with a particular focus on the last decade. The paper highlights a number of factors influencing the Centers’ acquisition of new PGRFA to include in the international collections, including increased capacity to analyze gaps in those collections and precisely target new collecting missions, availability of financial resources, and the state of international and national access and benefit-sharing laws and phytosanitary regulations. Factors contributing to Centers’ distributions of PGRFA included the extent of accession-level information, users’ capacity to identify the materials they want, and policies. The genebanks’ rates of both acquisition and distribution increased over the last decade. The paper ends on a cautionary note concerning the potential of unresolved tensions regarding access and benefit sharing and digital genomic sequence information to undermine international cooperation to conserve and use PGRFA.

UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 Target 2.5 focuses on the conservation of genetic diversity in soundly managed genebanks. In examining the term “soundly managed”, it becomes quickly evident that there is much more to long-term conservation than placing samples of seeds or other germplasm in long-term conservation conditions. There are several important factors that determine whether germplasm samples will remain viable in storage for long periods of time. To manage these factors efficiently and effectively, genebanks require sound data and quality management systems. The CGIAR Genebank Platform, coordinated by the Crop Trust, put in place a number of mechanisms that enabled effective online reporting, performance management, quality management, audit and external review and validation. These mechanisms do not conform to the usual monitoring systems put in place for research programs and have only been possible thanks to the flexibility of CGIAR in recognising that the genebanks were exceptional. As a result, in the past 10 years, CGIAR genebanks have significantly improved their performance and the conservation status of collections.

Genebanks were established out of a recognised need not just to provide genetic variation to support breeding objectives but to prevent crop diversity from being lost entirely for future users. Such conservation objectives may have led, over the past few decades, to a gradually diminishing connection between genebanks and current users of diversity. While there continues to be large-scale distribution of germplasm from genebanks to recipients worldwide, relatively little is known or published about the detailed trends in the demand for genebank materials. Meanwhile, the rapid expansion of the applications and uses of modern genomic technologies and approaches is, undoubtedly, having a transformational impact on breeding, research and the demand for certain genetic resources and associated data. These trends will require genebanks to be responsive and to adapt. They also provide important opportunities for genebanks to reorganize and become more efficient individually and as a community. Ultimately, future challenges and opportunities are likely to drive more demand for genetic diversity and provide an important basis for genebanks to gear up.