Genebanks were created by the middle of the twentieth century to preserve cultivated biodiversity when landraces began to be substituted by modern varieties. This move was generally accepted as a necessary step to safeguard the future. After about 75 years of collecting and maintaining genetic resources, the increasing ability of biotechnology to create new variability brings the roles of genebanks in the present and near future into question. As a continuation of several workshops that started in 2014, staff of some representative genebanks have met to discuss how the Spanish Plant Genetic Resources Network can be improved, identifying the following major shortcomings: lack of efficient coordination in the distribution of species among genebanks; too many genebanks; existence of detected and undetected duplicates; insufficient rate of regeneration; insufficient phenotyping, genotyping, and epiphenotyping; unsatisfactory rate of use by end users; and, insufficient funding. As a considerable increase in public funding is unlikely, we propose some strategies to increase the efficiency of the system. The most urgent tasks are to strengthen the rationalization of the network by establishing a clear hierarchy and functions, to improve the information in the base collection by deep characterization including not only phenotypes but also uses and utilities, to progressively replace the active collections with focused core collections constructed to meet users' needs, to optimize regeneration protocols, to limit new collecting expeditions of Spanish crop wild relatives to those growing in threatened habitats, and to develop user-friendly platforms to access germplasm documentation, including a unified system of descriptors and classification categories. Current advances in biotechnology, and especially those in gene editing will have without doubt an impact on the role of genebanks. However, the high number of genes and gene combinations created by evolution they hold cannot be produced by these techniques at present. So, these reservoirs of variability will continue to be indispensable for the near-medium future while the function of all the genes is unveiled. In turn, biotechnologies and gene editing will allow us to take advantage of the information held in genebanks in a more efficient and fast way, contributing to a better rationalization and functioning.

Food legumes are crucial for all agriculture-related societal challenges, including climate change mitigation, agrobiodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, food security and human health. The transition to plant-based diets, largely based on food legumes, could present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation, generating significant co-benefits for human health. The characterization, maintenance and exploitation of food-legume genetic resources, to date largely unexploited, form the core development of both sustainable agriculture and a healthy food system. INCREASE will implement, on chickpea (Cicer arietinum), common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), lentil (Lens culinaris) and lupin (Lupinus albus and L. mutabilis), a new approach to conserve, manage and characterize genetic resources. Intelligent Collections, consisting of nested core collections composed of single-seed descent-purified accessions (i.e., inbred lines), will be developed, exploiting germplasm available both from genebanks and on-farm and subjected to different levels of genotypic and phenotypic characterization. Phenotyping and gene discovery activities will meet, via a participatory approach, the needs of various actors, including breeders, scientists, farmers and agrifood and non-food industries, exploiting also the power of massive metabolomics and transcriptomics and of artificial intelligence and smart tools. Moreover, INCREASE will test, with a citizen science experiment, an innovative system of conservation and use of genetic resources based on a decentralized approach for data management and dynamic conservation. By promoting the use of food legumes, improving their quality, adaptation and yield and boosting the competitiveness of the agriculture and food sector, the INCREASE strategy will have a major impact on economy and society and represents a case study of integrative and participatory approaches towards conservation and exploitation of crop genetic resources.

Background: Common vetch (Vicia sativa L.) is a forage grain legume of high protein content and high nitrogen fixation, relevant in sustainable agriculture systems. Drought is the main limiting factor of this crop yield. Genetic resources collections are essential to provide genetic variability for breeding. The analysis of drought associated parameters has allowed us to identify drought tolerant and sensitive ecotypes in a vetch core collection. Results: To understand the mechanisms involved in drought response we analysed transcriptomic differences between tolerant and sensitive accessions. Polymorphic variants (SNPs and SSRs) in these differential expressed genes (DEGs) have also been analysed for the design of drought-associated markers. A total of 1332 transcripts were commonly deregulated in both genotypes under drought. To know the drought adaptive response, we also analysed DEGs between accessions. A total of 2646 transcripts are DEG between sensitive and tolerant ecotypes, in watered and drought conditions, including important genes involved in redox homeostasis, cell wall modifications and stress-response. The integration of this functional and genetic information will contribute to understand the molecular mechanisms of drought response and the adaptive mechanisms of drought tolerance in common vetch. The identification of polymorphic variants in these DEGs has also been screened for the design of droughtassociated markers that could be used in future breeding program strategies. Conclusions: Our studies shed light for the first time in common vetch about the genes and pathways associated with drought tolerance. In addition, we identify over 100 potential drought associated polymorphism, as SNPs or SSRs, which are differently present in drought and tolerant genotypes. The use of these molecular markers for trait prediction would enable the development of genomic tools for future engineering strategies by screening of germplasm crop collections for traits related with crop drought resilience, adaptability or yield in vetch.

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is a traditional crop in many Spanish regions. A major collection of Spanish common bean landraces is maintained at the National Genebank in the Center for Plant Genetic Resources (CRF), Alcala de Henares, Madrid, Spain. A core collection including 200 common bean accessions was established from the CRF collection. We sought to analyze the genetic diversity of this CRF core collection using morpho‐agronomic traits, phaseolin seed protein, and a set of 11 molecular markers. Accessions were classified in 65 groups according to their seed phenotype. Seventy‐one accessions have appropriate qualities for culinary use as green or snap beans. The four bean growth habits were present among the accessions included in the CRF core collection, with the indeterminate climbing habit (Type IV; 113 accessions) being the most common. Five different phaseolin patterns were found, the most common being type C (86 accessions), followed by types T (59 accessions) and S (42 accessions). With the set of molecular markers used, an average number of 6.18 alleles marker−1 and an average polymorphism information content marker−1 of 0.66 were found. The dendrogram and the principal components analysis developed using the molecular marker data revealed the existence of two main groups of accessions corresponding to the Middle American and the Andean gene pools, respectively, and suggested the existence of some intermediate forms. The possible origin of these putative intermediate forms is discussed. Knowledge of the genetic diversity in the CRF core collection will contribute to improved use and conservation of Spanish bean genetic resources.

Common vetch (Vicia sativa L.) is a legume used for animal feed because of its high protein content and great capacity for nitrogen fixation, making this crop relevant in sustainable agriculture. The Spanish vetch collection, conserved at the Spanish Plant Genetic Resources Center (CRF), is one of the largest collections of this species worldwide, including landraces, wild relatives mainly collected in Spain, and commercial cultivars, but also accessions of international origin. The analysis of the genetic diversity of this material, whose genome has not been sequenced yet, and the assembly of a representative collection could play a pivotal role in conserving and exploiting these genetic resources in breeding programs mainly in those focused on consequences and demands of climate change. In this work, a set of 14 simple sequence repeat (SSR) reference alleles for genetic diversity analysis of the CRF vetch collection has been developed, used for genotyping more than 545 common vetch accessions from all over the world and validated. All the tested markers were polymorphic for the analyzed accessions. Overall, at least 86 different loci were identified with 2–11 alleles per locus with an average of 6.1 alleles per locus. Also, the analyses of the generated SSR database support that most of these SSR markers are transferable across closely related species of Vicia genus. Analysis of molecular variance revealed that wild relatives have a higher genetic diversity than landraces. However, cultivars have similar diversity than landraces, indicating that genetic variability has been barely lost due to the breeding of this legume. Low differences of genetic variations between Spanish and non-Spanish accessions have been observed, suggesting a high degree of diversity within Spanish genotypes, which provide 95% of the total genetic variation, so we have focused our efforts on characterizing genotypes of Spanish origin that were further studied using storage protein profiles. Based on SSR, seed protein profiles, and agromorphological and passport data, a vetch core collection (VCC) containing 47 V. sativa accessions of Spanish origin has been established. In this collection, the characterization has been expanded using ISSR markers, and it has been reevaluated with new agromorphological data, including drought tolerance characters. This VCC presents a minimum loss of genetic diversity concerning the total collection and constitutes an invaluable material that can be used in future breeding programs for direct use in a resilient agricultural system.