COLLECTION, MAINTENANCE AND UTILIZATION OF PLANT GENETIC RESOURCES AT AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (ARC)-ROODEPLAAT VOPI, SOUTH AFRICA

The Agricultural Research Council – Roodeplaat Vegetable and Ornamental Plant Institute (ARC-Roodeplaat VOPI) is mandated to conduct research and technology development on commercial vegetables, indigenous and traditional vegetables, medicinal plants and indigenous flower bulb plants.
The institute maintains more than 9000 accessions, including locally collected as well as imported germplasm.
Material in the various genebanks is maintained either as seed in seed stores, in vivo in field and glass house genebanks or in vitro in tissue culture.
Most of these collections are linked to active research programs at the institute with direct utilization in either breeding programs, plant pathology or cultivation research leading to the development of new cultivars and technologies.
The genebank for example supports the only potato breeding program on the African continent.
The development of cultivars adapted to the warmer and dryer climates can contribute to the availability of material that can address climate change and play a role in food security in rural areas.
Besides the research outputs the genetic resources maintained at ARC-Roodeplaat VOPI play an important role in the sustainability of farmers.
As the only source of disease-free and indexed material of potato, sweet potato and Lachenalia flower bulb cultivars in South Africa, the supply of material from the genebank ensures that farmers receive quality material to sustain good harvests, meet the demand for production as well as contribute towards food security.
The potato genebank in this regard is the start of the potato certification scheme supporting the R 4.5 billion local potato industry and the sweet potato disease-tested scheme serves the R 34 million industry.
Similarly, the traditional and indigenous vegetable genebank is the only seed source of certain species available in the country, leading to requests for seed from a variety of role-players.
The plant genetic resources maintained in genebanks at ARC-Roodeplaat VOPI are utilized in various ways and very little of the research conducted would have been possible without these resources.

II All Africa Horticulture Congress

R. Kleynhans, P.N. Myeza, S.M. Laurie, A. Visser, W.S. Jansen Van Rensburg, P.O. Adebola

potatoes, sweet potatoes, indigenous and traditional vegetables, flower bulbs, medicinal plants

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2013.1007.119