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.

Garlic (Allium sativum) is an important cash food crop, and the biotechnology industry has considerable interest in the plant because of its medicinal importance. These medicinal properties are attributed to organosulphur compounds as the accumulation of these compounds varies according to genotype, locality, light quality, and cultivation practices. In this study, we compared a newly developed garlic variety NARC-G1 by National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC), Islamabad, Pakistan with three different garlic cultivars and highlighted the distinctive attributes like phenotypic characteristics, the content of allicin, elemental profile, and gene polymorphism. Phenotypic analysis showed NARC-G1 has significantly higher bulb weight (66.36g ± 18.58), single clove weight (5.87g ± 1.041), and clove width (17.41mm ± 0.95) which directly correlates to the size of the garlic. The analytical analysis showed the highest allicin content (4.82 ± 0.001) in NARC-G1. Genotyping of the alliinase in all four cultivars showed indels in the gene resulting in distinguishable changes in organosulphur compounds’ profile. NARC-G1 is unique from other garlic cultivars and could be the best choice for mass production with proper cultivation and irrigation management. Moreover, for Pakistan NARC-G1 could be a potential contender to earn the industrial benefits with inland cultivation instead of importing garlic alleviating the economic burden.

This study looks at how quantitative parameter variation changes over two years in different carrot accessions and the genetic diversity that exists in a group of accessions that come from different parts of the world. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to assess the significance of different factors, including the block effect, treatment effect, and check effect. The result indicated a significant mean sum of squares across various sources of variation. Both adjusted and unadjusted block and treatment effects were significant for all traits, while the check effect was significant for more. During both years, there was moderate to high variation in quantitative parameters for numerous quantitative traits among carrot accessions. Mature leaf length showed the highest variation, followed by mature leaf width, leaf area, root weight, leaf weight, and plant biomass. Principal component analysis revealed distinct patterns in the contributions of parameters during both years. Plotting carrot accessions on the scatter plot using the first three principal components also revealed an informative spread of accessions. A notable increase in variation during the second year was observed. Moreover, accessions from different continents displayed varying degrees of genetic diversity, with Asian accessions exhibiting the highest levels. These findings underscore the importance of global germplasm collection in breeding programs aimed at enhancing crop resilience and productivity. Leveraging this genetic diversity through advanced breeding strategies holds promise for developing cultivars capable of adapting to changing environmental conditions and meeting the demands of sustainable agriculture.