on the Ornamental Plant Germplasm Center

The ornamentals industry is losing plant species every year. To ensure that the gene pool for ornamentals is available for years to come, the Ornamental Plant Germplasm Center has been established. OPGC interim program director Jim Corfield discusses the significance of the center and what industry members can do to make sure it is a success.

Q. Can you describe your responsibilities as interim director of the Ornamental Plant Germplasm Center?

A. As interim program director, my job is to oversee overall operation of the OPGC during the first stages of its establishment, organization and implementation. Right now, efforts are focused on determining the staff needs and getting the recruitment process started. We are also working on upgrades and improvements required at our site at Ohio State University to allow us to properly receive and store our first germplasm populations. The center is a cooperative effort between USDA, Ohio State University and industry, so time is being spent to ensure that all interested individuals are consulted and included in the decisions we make.

Q. How long do you expect to be in this position?

A. My position is initially limited to one year. Hopefully, a full-time director will be on staff by that time to provide ongoing leadership to the center's programs.

Q. What do you see as the biggest impact the germplasm center will have at the grower level?

A. In the short term, the center won't have significant impact on the plant types or varieties that growers use. Commercial companies involved in breeding, selection and production of new crops provide this focus. OPGC's real value is in the collection, maintenance, characterization and distribution of plant genetics that are wild or otherwise unknown to breeders in the future. Plant breeders who are on an advisory committee to the center say that it is increasingly difficult to access wild or native materials and to locate and conserve significant collections that are kept by hobbyists. The center will help to maintain genetic diversity and avoid situations where genes are lost to future breeders.

Q. When will the center start having an impact at the grower level?

A. The center's initial impact on products that growers offer to the public will likely be in the five- to 10-year ranges. It takes that much time for good breeding and selection work to be completed and enough products produced to meet expected commercial demands. The more genetic characteristics we can have identified in the material conserved, the more valuable the resource is to researchers and the quicker they may be able to bring products to market.

Q. Germplasm centers for other food and forage crops have been operating for awhile. Why has it taken so long for a germplasm center to be developed for ornamental plants?

A. You're correct. Other plant germplasm centers have existed for better than 50 years. Until the last 10 years or so, floriculture has not been recognized for its importance to American agriculture. U.S. floriculture is a $13 billion a year industry and when combined with the environmental horticulture industry, they make up more than 10 percent of the farmgate or wholesale value of U.S. crop agriculture. These are the kinds of economic values that are needed to catch and keep the attention of lawmakers and federal administrators to allow necessary funding.

Industry support has also developed in the last few years as growers and others have become more concerned about conserving and diversifying the genetics of the crops they hope to grow in the future. This collaboration among government, academia and industry has been essential to get this project off the ground.

Q. Who will be in charge of collecting the germplasm and how will it be stored?

A. The center's director and curators will be responsible for collecting germplasm from whatever sources they can identify. There will be material obtained from cooperating government agencies and scientists around the globe, private collections, commercial breeders and producers, plant explorations -- literally any source that can provide unique genetic material of herbaceous ornamentals.

Germplasm will be stored in seed form in temperature- and humidity-controlled storage when seed is the best delivery system for that germplasm. Material that propagates best by vegetative means will be maintained in greenhouses or in vitro.

Q. Who will have access to the stored germplasm and will there be a charge for using it?

A. Any professional plant researcher, anywhere in the world, can have access to the germplasm maintained at the center. There is no charge for use of the material.

Q. With the increased number of patents on biotechnology techniques and specific genes, are you concerned that much of the ornamental germplasm that's collected will never have an opportunity to be used to develop commercially available plants because of the financial and legal restrictions and ramifications that will be facing the breeders?

A. More than one scientist may request the same germplasm at the same time. USDA's position on the use of the distributed germplasm is that there are no restrictions on what may be done with it. The basic goal is to share this genetic material with as many researchers as possible.

Q. Do you see more of the germplasm being used in traditional breeding efforts?

A. Will genes be used with traditional breeding techniques or other, newer modification techniques? Who knows. That will be up to the skill, resources and interests of the researchers who acquire the germplasm from the center.

Q. Should the ornamentals industry be concerned about a company taking some of the germplasm that has been collected, isolating specific genes and then patenting them?

A. It is always wise to consider the possibility that a scientist could discover and isolate a new gene that could be patented. This would be OK. There are amazing, new technologies available to characterize and identify DNA that will eventually make it possible for the center to know more precisely what the genetic make up is of a particular plant. This knowledge should make it possible to keep material available to more researchers for a longer time.

Q. Where will long-term financing to maintain the germplasm center come from?

A. Long-term, primary financing for the center will continue to come from both the federal government and Ohio State University. Industry can be a big help in certain ways, especially with physical plant improvements and, possibly, endowing a position on the center's staff to do things that are of special interest to the trade. When the center is up and running successfully, in all ways, that helps to ensure continued funding.

There is a specific cooperative agreement between the USDA and OSU, which has a five-year time frame. This is standard procedure and the normal amount of time for similar agreements already in place at the other germplasm centers around the country.

Q. Is there opportunity for the germplasm center to receive increased federal funds?

A. OPGC's initial funding was $200,000, included in the federal budget for fiscal 1999. In fiscal 2000, that funding level has been increased, which is a great sign of the support that the center is receiving.

The long-term goal is for the federal Floriculture Initiative to have $21 million in annual funding with about 10 percent of that going to OPGC.

Q. Can the ornamentals industry do anything to assist in the designation of more federal funding to the germplasm center?

A. Any individual or company interested in encouraging more federal funding should contact their congressional representatives directly or the Society of American Florists at (800) 336-4743.

Q. If I'm the average grower, what can I do to support the germplasm center?

A. The average grower can be a great resource to the center. They are the ones working with plants day in and day out. They are often the ones who have wonderful networks of people all around the world who know where unique plants are being maintained in private collections or out in the wild. Anybody who cares about plants should be thinking of the center as the place where germplasm will be permanently, professionally and publicly maintained for use by all future generations of plant researchers.

Calling the center to put its staff in touch with people to eventually bring in new plants would be a great help. This has already happened. We've lost a lot of genetic material over the decades. Maintaining what remains will insure diversity in new plants in the future.

Q. What type of species, varieties and cultivars will be stored at the germplasm center?

A. We had a group of people representing industry (growers and breeding companies), academia and government working together last year on things like the mission for the center and even a list of genera suggestions for conservation. Notice that we've focused on genera, rather than species, with no discussion of varieties.

Q. Do the operators of the germplasm center have in mind an initial number of species that they would like to have stored at the center?

A. The initial genera list has many names that we all recognize like Tagetes, Catharanthus, Dendranthema, Euphorbia and Viola. Within these genera are a large number of species, many of them wild as opposed to domesticated and already in use in commercial breeding programs. From this list of 25 genera, we'll select five to 10 to work on during the first few seasons of operation to insure that we do an excellent job from the outset.

Q. Any guess as to how many species, varieties will eventually be stored there?

A. By the end of the first five years of operation, we plan on having 10,000 accessions or individual items in active conservation at the center.

© 1999 Branch-Smith Publishing