The USDA National Plant Germplasm System Apple Collection within the Context of Global Crop Conservation Strategies

Global crop conservation strategies have been written for many crops that are maintained in genebanks around the world. These strategies describe the status of crop collections with regard to collection holdings, management practices, and accessibility. The status of global apple collections was summarized in "A Global Strategy for the Conservation and Use of Apple Genetic Resources", which was published by Volk and Bramel in 2019. The USDA National Plant Germplasm System apple collection is a large, diverse collection of apple cultivars and species that provides plant genetic resources to scientists within the United States and internationally. Plant materials in this collection have been used for a wide range of research including species diversity, phenotypic characteristics (fruit quality, tree traits, disease resistance, etc.), genetics/genomics, domestication, breeding, and more. Therefore, it is particularly important that this collection be well documented, providing critical passport and accession-related data to the user community. New molecular technologies will facilitate cross-collection comparisons, which will better inform collection management practices and the global community.