Developing crop descriptor lists - Bioversity International

12 BIOVERSITY INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL BULLETIN SERIES NO. 13
2.1 Crop-specific descriptors
The descriptors lists are targeted at curators, breeders, scientists and
others managing crop genetic resource collections. It is an important
tool in standardizing documentation systems, providing as it does
an international format and a universally understood ‘language’ for
plant genetic resources data (see Section 3).
2.2 Multi-crop passport descriptors (MCPD)
With the integration of collections at the national level into multicrop
collections, it became evident that common descriptors needed to
be more consistent across crops. As a result, Bioversity and FAO,
with substantial contributions from European countries through
the European Cooperative Programme for Crop Genetic Resources
Network (ECPGR Network) and CG Centres through the Systemwide
Information Network for Genetic Resources (SINGER
system), developed a subset of passport descriptors: the FAO/
IPGRI List of Multi-crop Passport Descriptors (MCPD) (Alercia et
al. 2001).
The MCPD list is a reference tool that provides international
standards to facilitate germplasm passport information exchange
across crops. These descriptors are compatible with the Bioversity
crop descriptor lists, with the descriptors used for the FAO World
Information and Early Warning System (WIEWS) on plant genetic
resources, with CG Centres and with European countries through
the EURISCO Catalogue. In 2005, the MCPD list was fully adopted
in the Passport Module for the development of the GERMINATE
database (which integrates genotypic and phenotypic information
for plant genetic resources collections) in the Generation Challenge
Programme, and many other initiatives. The MCPD list has had a
very positive effect on the establishment of central crop databases,
especially in Europe.
2.3 Descriptors for genetic marker technologies
This list of descriptors defines a minimum set of data needed to
describe accessions using biochemical and molecular markers, and
defines community standards for documenting information about
genetic markers. The document, which was originally based on
some of the descriptors listed in the traditional evaluation category
of the crop descriptors, is targeted at researchers using genetic
marker technologies, to facilitate the generation and exchange of
standardized genetic marker data. It also provides descriptions of
content and coding schemes that can assist in computerized data
exchange.