Genetic Characterization of Global Rice Germplasm for Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

Crop genebanks or germplasm collections store thousands of crop varieties. Each variety has unique genetic traits to be used in fighting diseases and insects, increasing yield and nutritional value and adjusting to environmental changes such as drought, soil salinity, etc. The Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN, 2011) of the United States (US) manages germplasm of plants, animals, microbes and invertebrates. Currently, there are 540,935 accessions of plant germplasm for 95,800 taxonomic names, 13,388 species of 2,208 genera along with 1,866,764 inventory records, 1,628,283 germination records, 7,291,757 characteristic records and 201,156 images in the GRIN (GRIN, 2011).