b"world-class facility in Saskatoon, and we've certainly gone way beyond those Delco Spark Plug boxes to store the materials.In 1998, PGRG moved to a brand-new facility at AAFCs Saskatoon Research and Development Centre, which is located at the University of Saskatchewan campus. Harvey remembers the move from Ottawa to Saskatoon well. During transport, each seed sample was split in two for insurance purposes in case the precious genetic material was lost or damaged due to accidents or other unforeseen circumstances. One half was sent out by truck, and for the other half they decided the Royal Canadian Air Force should fly it out, says Harvey, recalling there was a fair amount of publicity about this at the time. Today, the Saskatoon facility is the primary seed repository for PGRC, holding the bulk of the seed lotsMature wheat plots at Plant Gene Resources of Canada headquarters in Saskatoon, Sask. referred to as accessions for cerealsPhoto: AAFC.and other crops. There are two other gene banks in the system as well.He adds that much of the geneticDiederichsen says storage space The Canadian Clonal Genebank inmaterial was collected by Canadianat PGRCs base in Saskatoon is in Harrow, Ont. stores germplasm forscientists travelling abroad to findvery tight supply nowadays, and as fruit trees and small fruit crops, whilepromising seeds that could be used toa result, several things are taken into Fredericton Research and Developmentbenefit wheat, barley and oat breed- account when deciding what can go Centre in New Brunswick is theing in Canada and other countries,into the seed bank and what cant. repository for potato germplasm. something that continues to this day. The central consideration is that According to Diederichsen, theDiederichsen reports that eachwe must be able to regenerate it and number of seed samples stored at theyear, more than 5,000 accessions arealso ensure that we can preserve it Saskatoon gene bank has expandedshipped out to scientists in Canadaproperly, he says. enormously since the PGRCs incep- and around the world who utilize theThat means we have to prioritize, tion. Currently, it holds approximatelymaterial in their research and plantand we have to decide where we use 115,000 different accessions, of whichbreeding work. our limited resources, he says.70 per cent are barley (40,000 acces- He notes that a primary objectiveWe are at capacity right now, sions), oat (28,000 accessions) andof the Saskatoon gene bank is to gen- Diederichsen adds, noting there are wheat (13,000 accessions). erate high-quality seed, somethingplans in the works to expand the Diederichsen says the reasonthats done at the facilitys fields orstorage facility eventually. why so much space is dedicated togreenhouses or with the help of col- Every year, we add maybe 500 barley and oats is that under recipro- laborators in different locations.accessions, something like that, but cal arrangements the PGRC has withWe try to produce seed of goodour collection is growing much more other gene banks around the globe,quality to start with, because itslowly now than during the first Canada has been designated to main- doesnt age as quickly and will storeyears. tain the world base collections ofbetter over a long period of time, those two field crops. Diederichsen says. NOVEMBER 2020 GERMINATION.CA 31"