Towards Conserving Plant Genetic Resources

Conservation of plant genetic resources has been carried out to avoid the loss of valuable genetic resources and to meet the demand for future food supply and food security. This conservation uses two approaches: in-situ and ex-situ conservation. In-situ conservation involves maintaining genetic resources within their natural habitat, whereas ex-situ conservation involves conserving plant genetic resources in germplasm collections and genebanks. These two types of conservation complement each other; in-situ conservation focuses on habitat protection, while ex-situ conservation aims to preserve the genetic integrity of populations and individuals. Therefore, the ability to identify the diversity of plant genetic resources provides tools to capture maximum variation and minimise losses to the resources.