Brassica biodiversity conservation: prevailing constraints and future avenues for sustainable distribution of plant genetic resources

Abstract

The past decade has seen an observable loss of plant biodiversity which can be attributed to changing climate conditions, destroying ecosystems to create farmlands and continuous selective breeding for limited traits. This loss of biodiversity poses a significant bottleneck to plant biologists across the globe working on sustainable solutions to address the current barriers of agricultural productivity. Plant genetic resources centers or genebanks that conserve plant germplasm can majorly contribute towards addressing this problem. Second only to soybean, Brassica remains the largest oil-seed crop and is cultivated across 124 countries, and FAO estimates for a combined gross production values of broccoli, cabbages, cauliflower, mustard and rape seeds stands at a staggering 67.5 billion US dollars during the year 2020. With such a global status, wide variety of uses and more recently, growing importance in the health food sector, the conservation of diverse genetic resources of Brassica appeals for higher priority. Here we review the current status of Brassica conservation across plant genebanks. At present, at least 81,752 accessions of Brassica are recorded to be conserved in 148 holding institutes spread across only 81 countries. Several aspects that need to be addressed to improve proper conservation of the Brassica diversity was well as dissemination of germplasm are discussed. Primarily, the number of accessions conserved across countries and the diversity of Brassica taxa most countries has been highly limited which may lead to biodiversity loss in the longer run. Moreover, several practical challenges in Brassica germplasm conservation especially with respect to taxonomic authorities have been discussed. The current review identifies and highlights areas for progress in Brassica conservation, which include but are not limited to, distribution of conserved Brassica biodiversity, challenges faced by conservation biologists, conservation methods, technical hurdles and future avenues for research in diverse Brassica species.

Combined cytogenetic and molecular methods for taxonomic verification and description of Brassica populations deriving from different origins

“…The conditions of seed conservation on the other hand is a likely explanation for the low germination rate in landraces of both species. This observation highlights the importance of seed quality and storage conditions, especially in BRCs (Subramanian et al, 2023).…”

In vitro Propagation of Singgalang Cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata L.) on Murashige and Skoog Modification Media for Preservation Purpose

“…Conservation of genetic sources of Brassica species has been an important part of the research to preserve and produce new varieties or clones of the species for improving their ability to cope with climate change. Preservation by tissue culture technique is now developed by researcher beside the use of seeds in Brassica species (Hammer et al, 2018;Subramanian et al, 2023).…”

“…Tissue culture techniques for mass propagation and preservation purposes have been widely developed, including in cabbage species (Alawadi et al, 2019;Gambhir et al, 2017;Gerszberg et al, 2015;Pavlović et al, 2010;Srikanth et al, 2016) In germplasm storage or preservation, tissue culture techniques play a pivotal role in the conservation of genetic diversity through the use of growth inhibition technique (Chauhan et al, 2019;Gianní & Sottile, 2015;Trejgell et al, 2015). The preservation of genetic diversity is further facilitated by minimal growth strategies.…”

Chemical Profile and Biological Activities of Brassica rapa and Brassica napus Ex Situ Collection from Portugal

“…Germplasm banks that respond to society's needs include this group of crops in their priorities, and the last decade of the previous century gained notoriety due to the prominence of diets, food wheels, and pyramids in consumer decisions [35]. The Portuguese Brassica collection comprises 1271 landrace accessions, categorised into three crops: 139 B. napus accessions, 381 B. rapa accessions, and 751 B. oleracea accessions.…”