National Gene Bank of Egypt
摘要
The National Gene Bank of Egypt was inaugurated on October 6, 2004, with the responsibility of managing the Ex situ and In situ conservation program for plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, as well as serving as the focal point for the genetic resources program. The design of cold storage facilities was planned to contain approximately 200,000 accessions in short, medium (active collection), and long (base collection) storage. All information obtained during field and lab evaluation, characterization, and conservation is uploaded to the database and distributed among the concerned parties. In addition to conserving accessions to true seeds, the National Gene Bank (NGB) has an in vitro storage facility, two modern greenhouses, a botanical garden, and a 5-acre field for regeneration. The gene bank serves as the national focal point for the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and a member of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which works to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity worldwide. To date, the NGB has acquired over 21,000 accessions from various crops, collected from Egypt and different sources including exotic breeding materials, landraces, old local varieties, field crops, horticulture and wild plants, and crop wild relatives. This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the National Gene Bank, in Egypt and its laboratories involved in cooperation, and support for the protection, evaluation, characterization, and conservation of plant genetic resources for food security whether through in situ or ex situ conservation.