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Wild celery has now been conserved in nine diverse locations across Germany to help ensure the breadth of genetic diversity is available to future crop improvement and mitigating the adverse impact of climate change. Germany is pointing the way forward for all vegetable and fruit conservation, safeguarding the choice of foods we all value on our tables for thousands of years into the future.

Crop wild relatives (CWR) are of vital importance as genetic resource for plant breeding / research and the genetic enhancement of crop gene pools. CWR have been used as genetic resources since the beginning of modern plant breeding and are the original progenitors of our crops.

Today, it is nearly impossible to maintain an overview of the contribution of CWR to crop improvement and the high and increasing economic benefit to the continued development of modern varieties and the maintenance of resilient and productive agriculture systems.

The growing importance of CWR in breeding underlines the need for improved species conservation programmes, especially considering the global extinction and genetic erosion threat to wild plant species. Conserving plants in nature ensures the plants and their pests or diseases continue to evolve together, so potentially offering more up-to-date resistance.

Fortunately, the conservation biologist Nigel Maxted described how genetic reserves could be established to conserve the genetic diversity of a species in situ both within existing biodiversity conservation programmes and outside of formal structures.

For decades, plant geneticists have discussed how the existing nature protection infrastructures, such as the Natura 2000 network of protected sites, might be used to improve the in situ conservation of CWR. In the project “Genetic Reserve Network for Wild Celery” we demonstrated practically this goal might be achieved in close cooperation with partners of the species protection sector.

For designation of genetic reserves, we applied a bottom-up approach and followed principles of participatory planning for conservation projects. Professor Maxted commented:

“I’m over-joyed to see the theoretical concepts developed by numerous scientists over the last century being put into action; making the link between wild plant conservation in nature and all of our future food security.”

In the project, experts evaluated approximately 350 sites where the wild celery species Apium graveolens ssp. graveolens, Helosciadium repens, H. inundatum and H. nodiflorum grew, as well as adding new localities to update floristic databases. In addition, the geographic distribution patterns of genetic diversity of the species were analysed to determine a set of 10-12 occurrences best representing the intraspecific variation of each of the species. The additional location data, as well as the genetic information, are a tangible contribution of the agricultural sector to species protection programmes.

Sharing information with stakeholders is essential for a successful communication process for the designation of genetic reserves and for local support to conservation actions. Although this model was developed for CWR species, its implications are applicable for any plant species where conserving the breadth of genetic diversity is the ultimate goal.

During the final project phase, genetic reserve sites for 45 wild celery occurrences are being planned, established and designated, and seed samples will be collected and stored in a genebank as a back-up and to facilitate access to the germplasm.

The project was already transformed by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture into a permanent administrative unit to signal that the agricultural sector takes permanent responsibility for the conservation of these resources. Nine genetic reserves had been designated thus far and all 45 proposed will be established in the coming months.

We expect that more genetic reserves will be set up for other German crop groups in the near future and that other countries might get inspired by this approach to conserve the valuable genetic diversity across the world.

For more information, please contact: Maria Bönisch, Julius Kuehn Institute (JKI) - Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants maria.boenisch (at) julius-kuehn.de