Developing crop descriptor lists - Bioversity International

4 BIOVERSITY INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL BULLETIN SERIES NO. 13
The Meeting concluded that standardization of evaluation
and characterization descriptors is not desirable on a multi
crop basis. The crop-specific descriptor lists, compiled in
consultation with relevant crop experts worldwide, provide the
crop-specific standards (van Hintum et al. 1995).
This was also confirmed during the preparatory process for
the International Conference and Programme for Plant Genetic
Resources (ICPPGR) organized at Leipzig, Germany in 1996. The
country reports provided a further useful indication of the extensive
use of these descriptors; their use is also cited by many countries in
the State of the World Report on Genetic Resources (FAO 1996):
To derive an indication of the use of descriptor lists, 152
country reports were analysed in IPGRI HQ for the Leipzig
Conference. The results showed that descriptor lists have a high
degree of penetration and use at the international level. Of the
countries surveyed, 102 are undertaking characterization or
evaluation and specified which descriptors they are using. Of
these countries, 93 (or 91%) use IPGRI descriptor lists alone
or in combination with other lists.
In 1999, the CG Secretariat published a ‘Synthesis of findings
concerning CG Case Studies on the Adoption of Technological
Innovations’ (Laliberté et al., 1999). The impact study was related
to the adoption of the crop descriptors developed for three different
crops. Some key conclusions could be drawn from the results of
this case study:
• IPGRI (now Bioversity International) descriptors are well known
international standards for the detailed description of crop
specific resources and are used by the majority of germplasm
collection managers.
• Users consider the descriptors to be very useful for a range
of applications, such as characterization, standardization of
information, the establishment of databases, documentation of
accessions, creation of core collections, and data exchange.
Of the 143 germplasm collection managers responding to the
above survey regarding the use of descriptors, 80% used descriptors
in general and 69% used Bioversity International (ex-IPGRI)
descriptors, while the remaining 11% used their own descriptors
or those developed by UPOV and COMECON.