‘Shopping’ for seeds

A new online seed catalogue by the Australian Grains Genebank in Horsham is making the seeds that underpin the development of new crop varieties more accessible than ever.

Agriculture Victoria researcher Dr Sally Norton, the Genebank’s leader, said the facility was dedicated to preserving and making available plant genetic resources of grain crops that were valuable to Australia’s research and breeding industries.

“The catalogue gives people online shopping cart functionality, allowing them to search seed lines and request samples with a few simple mouse clicks,” she said.

Dr Norton said the catalogue was a Germplasm Resources Information Network, GRIN, database system — a common software system used to manage information about seeds and plant tissue globally.

“Through our partnership with the Grains Research and Development Corporation, GRDC, our ultimate goal is to unlock the genetic potential of plant genetic resources for cereal, oilseed and pulse crops to underpin the development of high-yielding, climate resilient crops that will benefit Australian grain growers,” she said.

“Australian Grains Genebank currently stores more than 200,000 types of seed covering 1250 species across 162 genera.

“The new online catalogue will allow interested parties to look up information about our seed stock and request them for research, breeding and training and educational purposes.

“Our collection includes both temperate and tropical cereals, legumes, oilseeds and other crop types. We also maintain historical information on the seed lines.”

The catalogue is available online via www.agriculture.vic.gov.au/cropsand-horticulture/the-australian-grains genebank

People can click on, ‘Search our online seed catalogue’ — which will redirect them to the GRIN-Global database. They will need to register via a simple sign-up process to use the database.

The genebank is a partnership between the Grains Research and Development Corporation and Agriculture Victoria.