A joint collecting mission in Southern Kazakhstan
A joint seed collection mission between VIR, ICARDA, Margot Forde Forage Germplasm Centre (MFFGC) and the Kazakh Research Institute of Agriculture and Crop Prop Production was performed in Southern Kazakhstan between 29 June and 18 July 2015. Explorations and collecting of wild and cultivated cereal, forage (Aegilops, Triticum, Hordeum, Dactylis, Phleum, etc.) and legume (Medicago, Trifolium, Onobrychis, etc.) species were carried out in the Almaty, Zhambyl and South-Kazakhstan provinces. The joint team explored vast territories with terrain encompassing steppes, semi-deserts and foothills. The route length was around 3000 km and the total number of collected accessions was over 300.
A joint collecting mission in the Crimean Republic
A collecting mission in the Crimean Republic was organized within the framework of cooperation between the National Agrobiodiversity Center (National Academy of Agricultural Science, RDA, Republic of Korea) and VIR. This collecting mission pursued the objective of collecting the diversity of vegetable and cucurbit crops (cucumber, tomato, onion, basil, celery, melon, watermelon, pumpkin, etc.) and was performed during the period of 17-29 August 2015. Collecting was done from private gardens, markets, seed shops, wild nature, etc. The joint team explored territories in central, as well as southern, eastern and western coastal regions of Crimea (see the attached map). The total route length was 3000 km; around 250 accessions have been collected.
