News

Why we need early-career researchers to join the conversation on plant genetic resources

Are you a postgrad student or early-career researcher? We are currently looking for people like you to submit opinion pieces for publication in our regular eNewsletter, DivSeek Connect. The community represented by DivSeek International Network is as diverse as the plant biodiversity we seek to protect. Our network encompasses academics, gene bank managers, software developers, […]

What to expect from DivSeek’s upcoming Barcodes to Bioeconomy Workshop

Corresponding author: Chris Richards ‘Barcodes to Bioeconomy’ will be a small, action-oriented workshop, bringing together scientists from the broad domains of plant gene bank curation, germplasm characterization, knowledge representation, data management and bioinformatics. Our goal is to identify gaps that currently make it difficult to integrate data describing the physical specimens held in gene banks […]

Empowering with genomics: DivSeek Hubs deliver workshop series for Latin American germplasm bank community

Corresponding authors: Carolina Sansaloni, César Petroli, and Sarah Hearne, CIMMYT. Two of DivSeek International Network’s Hubs recently joined forces to deliver a workshop series on the use of genomics and digital tools for the conservation and use of genetic resources for food and agriculture. The workshop series is a joint effort between our Regional Hub […]

Germinate Hub expands utility for visualizing breeding data through time and space

Corresponding authors: Paul Shaw and Sebastian Raubach, James Hutton Institute, Dundee, Scotland. Germinate is an open-source software platform that allows users to build, share and explore plant genetic resource databases. The power of Germinate lies in its flexibility – offering facilities to store both standard collection information and passport data, along with more advanced data […]

Where global policy meets interoperability: the thorny issue of digital sequence information

Corresponding author: Pankaj Jaiswal, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA. In October last year, a team of experts from FAO, CGIAR and Oregon State University published an Open Access book chapter titled ‘Digital Sequence Information and Plant Genetic Resources: Global Policy Meet Interoperability.’ The chapter appears in ‘Towards Responsible Plant Data Linkage: Data Challenges for […]

How (and why) do we grow agricultural productivity? Lessons from the SPG Coalition’s 2022 events

The USDA’s Coalition on Sustainable Productivity Growth for Food Security and Resource Conservation (SPG Coalition) was launched in 2021 at the UN Food Systems Summit. The SPG Coalition is a voluntary coalition of action whose members aim to accelerate the transition to more sustainable food systems through a holistic approach to productivity growth. DivSeek International […]

Looking back at key achievements from the Ninth Session of the Treaty’s Governing Body (GB 9)

Missed the Harlan IV symposium? Get our workshop resources here

Recently, the fourth international Harlan symposium was held in Brisbane, Australia. The symposium ran alongside TropAg, a conference on tropical and subtropical agriculture. The Harlan symposia are dedicated to the origins of agriculture and the domestication, evolution, and utilization of genetic resources. They are named in honour of Jack R Harlan, an American botanist and […]

DivSeek AGM 2023

WHEN: Thursday, 12 January 2023 WHERE: Courtyard by Marriott Mission Valley/Hotel Circle, San Diego, USA WHAT: We are pleased to announce that the DivSeek International Network Inc. Annual General Meeting will once again take place in-person. This year, the AGM will coincide with the Plant Animal Genome Conference in San Diego, USA. The meeting will […]

From Genome to Phenome: how AG2PI is building bridges between kingdoms

Written in collaboration with Carol Brown, AG2PI Communications Coordinator When it comes to tackling problems as complex and urgent as securing global food security, our research communities have no choice but to become more interdisciplinary. Let’s take genome-to-phenome (G2P) science, for example. Understanding how the physical properties of a crop connect back to its genetic […]