Agroforestree Germplasm

Goal: To determine and support sustainable tree seed and seedling systems and wise management of agroforestry tree genetic resources

Objectives
TM1.1 Tree Genetic Resources and Information
Agroforestry tree genetic resources and their associated information better characterized, documented, conserved and made available.

TM1.2 Seed and Seedling Systems
Informed and mobilised actors for better development of tree seed and nursery systems with decentralised approaches more incorporated.

TM1.3 On-farm management of tree genetic diversity
Tree species diversity (intraspecific and interspecific) better inventoried, utilised and conserved on farms
Outputs

• Molecular characterisation of priority tree species (e.g. Expressed Sequence Tags)
• Build stronger networks of tree seed institutions in Asia and Africa.
• Promote use of TM databases more through advertising, training, and proactive indexing
• Tree diversity/abundance baselines on farm in S. Africa and South Asia using Kindt manual.
• Research to expand germplasm scaling up, especially decentralized approaches.
• System put in place for decentralised ICRAF germplasm distribution record keeping.

This focal area links to CGIAR System Priorities 1b (Conservation and characterisation of under-utilised PGR) and 4a (Integrated land, water and forest management). Output TM1.2 on seed and seedling systems however falls outside the System Priorities which may be an advantage or disadvantage with respect to donors.

Within the CGIAR, SROs and FAO there is still much to be done to convince many of the justification to be working on agroforestry tree germplasm. A common view by outside observers is that there are too many of them to do any single species justice. Another widely held view is that they can be handled in ways similar to annual crop plants ignoring the perennial nature, life history traits (e.g. dioecy), larger genomes and common recalcitrance of agroforestry tree species.

Most tree seed projects have had one or more of three problems (a) they either focused on the quick- fix, 10-tonnes-of-seed approach or the long-term central seed orchard concept and did not integrate the two; (b) there was a focus mainly on quantity and not quality; and (c) tree seed markets were never developed or encouraged. There is an opportunity for ICRAF to develop tree seed projects in Asia and Africa that addresses these problems.

The HQ GRU has served ECA most effectively but needs to broaden its services more to the other regions in terms of information, methods and germplasm provision. Bulk sourcing of tree germplasm may be justified in certain cases but mostly this would be small quantities for trials or nucleus quantities for establishing founder populations.

Regional germplasm work requires more substantial documentation and replication of the information to the HQ GRU. This should be possible now with World Bank project databases and computers supplied to each region.

There is a need to develop need tree germplasm networks that are broader than previous and now largely defunct tree seed centre networks (e.g. SADC TSCN). These would include seed producers, small-scale suppliers, and NGOs. There is a need to develop tree seed markets more effectively.

The TM databases are widely appreciated outside of ICRAF but our own staff don’t use them or at least don’t provide feedback as regularly as they could. There may be need for training on how to use the new functions (i.e. GIS) within the databases. Regional staff could also usefully suggest new species for inclusion or provide new images or information for existing species.

The on-line websites of Allanblackia, Prunus and Sclerocarya are well known but not accessible to all. Producing off-line versions on DVD or CD-ROM (and eventually HDVD) will also need to be done for those without internet.