Potato in vitro slow growth storage and pathogen elimination techniques were established at CIP in the 1973-79 period. These developments pioneered the in vitro conservation and worldwide dissemination of the most important Andean root and tuber crops. The CIP’s in vitro genebank, existed now for 36 years, and currently stores potato (5,551 accessions), sweetpotato (5,454), oca (491), ulluco (418), mashua (47), yacon (29), achira (11) and arracacha (2) germplasm; additionally, breeding and research accessions of potato (3,906), sweetpotato (45) and other crops (158) are maintained. Since 2000, the use of bar-coding-assisted databases has increased the conservation efficiency and pathogen-tested materials production. Currently, 48% of the whole collection is available for international distribution under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (IT). The establishment of safety back up copies and cryopreservation use has enhanced the longterm conservation of collections. In February 2008, CIP’s in vitro genebank was awarded with the Accreditation Certificate for applying the highest quality practices, by the UK Accreditation Service in accordance with the International Standard ISO/IEC 17025:2005. The most relevant milestones achieved are: 1) 16,843 accessions of root and tubers are safely conserved in vitro ; 2) 44,858 pathogen tested samples were distributed to 121 countries, contributing to research, conservation and productivity; 3) since 1998, CIP has repatriated more than 3,600 samples of over 1,200 pathogen-tested native potatoes varieties to 41 Andean farmer communities and 6 national institutions to restore diversity affected by crop diseases/pests, migration and poverty, and to increase productivity; 4) cryopreservation has increased efficiency through reducing labor and loss risks. Currently, the potato cryo-collection contains more than 700 accessions with 95% confidence of recovering samples after longterm preservation.
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