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Hosted by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, Bioversity's International Transit Centre (ITC) holds the International Musa Germplasm Collection, the major part of which is held in trust for the benefit of future generations. The world’s largest collection of Musa, at more than 1000 accessions, includes mostly traditional cultivars, plus some improved materials and wild relatives. A list of the accessions held at the ITC is available here.
Since domesticated bananas and plantains do not produce seeds, and the seeds produced by wild species are difficult to conserve, their genetic diversity is conserved as plantlets in test tubes under slow-growth conditions. The plantlets are checked for the presence of pathogens, such as bacteria, fungi and viruses. Only those that are free of diseases (about two-thirds of the collection) are made available for distribution. Research is on-going to find therapies for the few viruses that are harder to eliminate.
Each accession is represented by 20 shoot cultures kept on nutrient medium in continuous light conditions at 16°C and re-cultured once a year on average. Every 10 years the tissue-culture material should be replaced with fresh material grown out in the field to control for the risks of somaclonal variation (altered characteristics in plant tissues that have been kept in test tubes for an extended period of time).
To ensure the long-term conservation of the collection, the accessions are being ‘cryopreserved’, that is frozen to the temperature of liquid nitrogen (-196C). Cryopreservation arrests both the growth of plant cells and all processes of biological deterioration, so that the material can be preserved indefinitely and resuscitated into fully viable banana plants. Eventually the entire collection will be cryopreserved and duplicated at the Institut de Recherche pour le développement in Montpellier, France.
Together with a network of field collections in several locations around the tropics, the ITC is central to the Global Conservation Strategy for Musa.
Obtaining material from ITC
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Germplasm held in the ITC genebank that has been indexed virus negative is freely available for international distribution upon request. Click here to view a list of all available germplasm.
Germplasm is distributed under the terms and conditions of a Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA) of the Multilateral System of Access and Benefit Sharing of the International Treaty (PDFs: English, French, Spanish) on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. As from 1 February 2008, the SMTA is being used for transferring all plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, whether or not they are included in Annex 1 of the Treaty. Additional Conditions to the SMTA may apply for the distribution of Material under Development (breeding materials acquired by Bioversity International from Crop Improvement Programmes worldwide).
You can download the pdf-files of the SMTA and Additional Conditions to the SMTA here:
SMTA English (170 kb)
SMTA French (170 kb)
SMTA Spanish (170 kb)
Additional conditions (16 kb)
If you agree to the terms and conditions set out in the agreement, please contact the ITC to request the germplasm of your interest. Kindly provide the following information: name and address of the recipient or receiving institution, name and contact information of the authorized official, and list of germplasm you wish to receive. Also, provide a brief summary of the intended use of the plant genetic resources.
The ITC will send you an order form and the SMTA for signature. You also will be requested to provide the ITC an import permit obtained from the Plant Protection Service of the receiving country, if required. Upon receipt of the signed SMTA and the import permit, the ITC will process your order. The plant material will be provided as in-vitro rooted plantlets for soil planting or as proliferating shoot clusters for further in-vitro propagation. Usually five samples per accession are supplied. For a wide range of accessions, lyophilized leaf tissues are also available in order to respond to requests for DNA. Delivery time depends on the type of plant material requested and ranges between 2 and 4 months for in-vitro cultures and is about 2 weeks for lyophilized leaf tissues. The material will be accompanied by a health statement, phytosanitary certificate and a copy of the SMTA.
For requests or more information on how to obtain material from the international Musa germplasm collection, contact the ITC or Bioversity (details below).
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Sending material to ITC
Most accessions acquired by the genebank are held in trust for the benefit of humanity. They are conserved under the conditions of an agreement signed between Bioversity and the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA), placing these materials in the Multilaterial System of Access and Benefit Sharing.
If you would like to send germplasm to the ITC for the purpose of safety duplication and/or to share it with the Musa research community or other interested parties, you can contact the ITC or Bioversity (details below).
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Contact details
International Transit Centre (ITC)
c/o Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Laboratory of Tropical Crop Improvement
Kasteelpark Arenberg
B-3001 Leuven (Heverlee)
Belgium
Tel: +32 (16) 32 14 17
Fax: +32 (16) 32 19 93
E-mail:
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Bioversity International
Parc Scientifique Agropolis II
34397 Montpellier Cedex 5
France
Tel: +33 (4) 67 61 13 02
Fax: +33 (4) 67 61 03 34
E-mail:
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