Welcome to the home page of the G.A. Marx Pisum Genetic Stock Collection. This collection of genetic stocks of Pisum sativum is the legacy of the late Dr. Gerald A. Marx, formerly of Cornell University. Throughout his career, Dr. Marx amassed some 80,000 seed packets, most of which have genotype data and other comments written on them. Shortly before his death, Dr. Marx contracted with the United States Department of Agriculture to preserve a subset of his holdings in perpetuity, as a special collection in the National Plant Germplasm System. Dr. Marx, along with several other pea geneticists, extracted the accessions of his collection that best demonstrate mutations in this species, and the interaction of these mutations.
This collection is now maintained at the Western Regional Plant Introduction Station, located on the campus of Washington State University, in Pullman, Washington. The accessions are regenerated, evaluated, and stored at the Pullman station, and are freely available for distribution to anyone with a bona fide research, development, or educational interest.
Over one hundred defined mutations are represented in this collection, in a set of approximately five hundred accessions. While the great majority of these accessions are the direct product of Dr. Marx' program, new accessions from others are welcome additions to this collection if they represent new mutations, or genotypes with combinations of genes that are of particular interest.
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About Dr. Gerald A. Marx