Curators with specific knowledge should be appointed for each major crop or crop group, and they should be given management responsibilities.

Knowledgeable curators must oversee the acquisition and management of all of the major or essential NPGS collections, and promote their use. The lack of many such curators requires some site managers to oversee a number of different crop species. Curators must have specific knowledge about their crops, collections, maintenance sites, needs, and enhancement plans. With advice from the crop advisory committee, a curator should work with the leader of the NPGS to develop and implement plans for exploration, management, documentation, regeneration, evaluation, and enhancement. By fostering the breeding of potentially useful genes into appropriate genetic lines, curators can greatly enhance the use of NPGS collections.

The base collections at the National Seed Storage Laboratory should reflect all of the seed collections in the national system.

The NSSL is intended to provide base storage for all materials held in the national system's seed collections, but it cannot because of space limitations. Expansion of the laboratory is therefore imperative (National Research Council, 1988). However, as collections enlarge, the size of the NSSL's task will increase. The development of improved protocols for storing seed, monitoring its viability, and regenerating small or declining samples is imperative.

The National Plant Germplasm System must devote more of its resources to regenerating seed accessions.

Regeneration is costly in time and resources, and introduces the risk of genetic shifts, particularly where an accession is genetically heterogeneous. It is, however, necessary if seed viability has declined, or if distribution or testing has depleted the accession.

Regeneration must take account of the breeding structure and population genetics of the sample. Errors, such as the lack of cages or inadequate separation distances to prevent cross-pollination of open-pollinated accessions in the field, can result in irretrievable genetic damage. For some accessions, unique, non-native-pollinating insects may need to be maintained with the accession.

In the past, resources to increase or regenerate such samples have been inadequate. For about 60,000 NSSL accessions, mostly named

Front Matter (R1-R16)

Executive Summary (1-20)

1 Managing Crop Genetic Resources (21-42)

2 Elements of the National Plant Germplasm System (43-86)

3 Administration of the National System (87-106)

4 Prescription for Effectiveness (107-144)

References (145-148)

Glossary (149-153)

Abbreviations (154-155)

Authors (156-160)

Index (161-173)