A long-term systematic monitoring framework for on-farm conserved potato landrace diversity

Abstract

There are several challenges for the advancement of in-situ conservation science. One of them relates to the need to develop standard procedures and metrics to measure temporal changes in the conservation status of landraces and wild relatives. Examples of crop genetic in-situ monitoring, particularly of cultivated landraces, are rare. Some exceptions exist (Salick, 2012), but these are generally non-systematic in the sense that they do not cover multiple benchmark sites or countries within the center of origin of a particular crop species, apply standard procedures that are concerted and easily accessible or replicable across species, and foresee regular time intervals with local partnerships for sustained monitoring