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Multiplication of accessions

 Each year, around 1 800 accessions are propagated in field or in greenhouse for the wild species. Multiplication are realized under the process "Propagation of genetic resources" 13 11 39 000010 linked with the In-the-Field Experimentation, which managed all of multiplication plots in Crouël and with the experimental infrastructure Crops under controlled conditions, in charge of greenhouses.

  Several descriptors are observed during plot's multiplication such as:

• Plant height,
• Lodging intensity,
• Heading date,
• Disease susceptibility,
• Awnedness, ...

During multiplication, individual spike are harvested by hand with scissors for each accession. Two spikes are kept in their entirety and act as a phenotypic reference spike to ensure traceability by comparison between two multiplication cycles.

Remaining spikes are dried in a drying chamber of 20m² (Temperature: 20°C, Relative humidity:15%) then threshed. Four seeds' batches by accession are then created:

• A seeds sample, of a few tens of grams, is designated to resource dispatching, under request;
• A seeds sample is used to maintain and regenerate the sample for future multiplication;
• A seeds sample, coming from a self-pollinated spike, is designated for molecular analysis (excepted for spring barley, rye and oat);
• And a security sample.

Samples' conservation

Collection is conserved in two ways:

• An active collection: is maintained to medium term storage in a cold room 100 m3 under controlled conditions of temperature (+4°C) and relative humidity (30%) in accordance with IPBGR standards. Conserved samples in this cold room are designated to regeneration, mutliplication, distribution, characterization and assessment.
• A base collection: is maintained to a long term storage at -20°C and used as a back-up of the collection. Freezers are located in a separate building from the rest of the collection.

The storage devices are surveyed by alarm monitoring software. Conservation methods are described into procedure "Genetic resources storage" 13 11 39 000008.

Each sample is identified by a bar code and its informations (accession number, harvest year, stock's amount, …) is integrated in the BRC database (Access).

BRC following this procedure managed all collections. Computer monitoring allows the treceability of sample's quality (germination test) and availability of seeds stock in real time. With this system, regeneration of samples in field or in greenhouse are organised depending on quantity available of seeds and results of germination tests.