About the Crop Germplasm Committees

Crop Germplasm Committee (CGC) is the generic name for a specific national working group of specialists providing analysis, data and recommendations on genetic resources within a specific crop or group of related crops of present or future economic importance.

These committees represent their user community. Their membership consists of representation from federal, state, and private sectors; representation from various scientific disciplines; and geographical representation for the crop(s).

Crop Germplasm Committees are concerned with critical issues facing the NPGS including:

1. Identifying gaps in U.S. collections and developing proposals to fill these gaps through exchange and collaborative collecting trips.
2. Assisting crop curators in identifying duplication in the collections.
3. Prioritizing traits for evaluation and developing proposals to implement the evaluations.
4. Assisting crop curators and GRIN personnel in correcting passport data and ensuring that standardized, accurate and useful information is entered into the GRIN database.
5. Assisting in germplasm regeneration projects.
6. Identifying closed out programs and other germplasm collections in danger of being lost and developing plans to rescue the important material in these programs.
7. Working with quarantine officials to identify and ensure new techniques for pathogen identification which will assist in the expeditious release of plant germplasm.
8. Maintaining current reports on the status of their crops for the Congress, ARS National Program Staff and Administrators, State administrators and other key individuals involved with the NPGS.
9. Evaluating the potential benefits and problems associated with the development and use of core subsets.

Forty Crop Germplasm Committees provide support to the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS).