What is germplasm in biology?

Definition of germplasm 1a : germ cells and their precursors serving as the bearers of heredity. b : the genetic material of germ cells : genes There is now a global effort to conserve the genetic material, or germplasm, of important crops.—

Germplasm conservation is the most successful method to conserve the genetic traits of endangered and commercially valuable species. Germplasm is a live information source for all the genes present in the respective plant, which can be conserved for long periods and regenerated whenever it is required in the future.

Germplasm collection is a collection of live crop varieties and wild relatives with divers alleles of genes. A very good collection is helpful in picking up the desired trait for incorporation in new improved varieties.

Germplasm consists of landraces, modern cultivars, obsolete cultivars, breeding stocks, wild forms and wild species of cultivated crops. Germplasm includes both cultivated and wild species and relatives of crop plants.

Germplasm consists of land races, modern cultivars, obsolete cultivars, breeding stocks, wild forms and wild species of cultivated crops. … Germplasm includes both cultivated and wild species and relatives of crop plants.

2.9 “Plant germplasm” or “genetic material” means the reproductive or vegetative propagating material of plants.

 Germplasm is a living tissues from which new plants can be grown.It can be a seed or another plant part-a leaf,a piece of stem,pollen or even just a few cells that can be turned into the whole plant.  It contains the information for a species genetic make up,a valuable natural resources of plant diversity.

tissue culture, a method of biological research in which fragments of tissue from an animal or plant are transferred to an artificial environment in which they can continue to survive and function. The cultured tissue may consist of a single cell, a population of cells, or a whole or part of an organ.

In situ germplasm conservation: In situ germplasm conservation means the preservation of live plant matter in the form of seeds and spores in their natural habitat.

Germplasm are living genetic resources such as seeds or tissues that are maintained for the purpose of animal and plant breeding, preservation, and other research uses. … Germplasm collection is important for the maintenance of biological diversity and food security.

Benefits of germplasm collection are : i) Cell and tissue cultures of many plant species can be cryopreserved and maintained in a viable state for several years and used when required. ii) Plant materials from endangered species can be conserved using this method.

• availability of desirable gene in the crop and its wild relatives. 44%
• infrastructure. 3%
• trained manpower. 8%
• transfer of genes from unrelated sources. 45%

‘Pre-breeding” is the early phase of any breeding programme utilising germplasm. Many improvement programmes concerned with the utilisation of plant germplasm include the process of pre-breeding, also called developmental breeding or germplasm enhancement, as part of the total project.

PGC-specific or -enriched proteins include known components of the germplasm (e.g., Vasa, Oskar, Tudor, Aubergine, Piwi), additional RBPs (e.g., Zn72D), as well as components of the proteasome, DNA replication machinery, and ribosome (Siddiqui et al., 2012).

Germplasm is the term used to describe the seeds, plants, or plant parts useful in crop breeding, research, and conservation efforts. … A collection of germplasm usually includes primitive landraces and wild species related to particular crops, and developed varieties and breeders’ lines.

A gene pool is the total genetic diversity found within a population or a species. … Inbreeding contributes to the creation of a small gene pool and makes populations or species more likely to go extinct when faced with some type of stress.

germ-plasm theory, concept of the physical basis of heredity expressed by the 19th-century biologist August Weismann (q.v.).

Plant genetic resources for food and agriculture consist of diversity of seeds and planting materials of traditional varieties and modern cultivars, crop wild relatives, and other wild plant species. These resources are used as food, feed for domestic animals, fibers, textiles, and energy.

The germplasm is the protoplasm of the egg cells and the sperms. The germplasm contains the characters which are inherited from one generation to the other. Somatoplasm: The somatoplasm contains the information about the proteins, mRNA, carbohydrates and the other components in the cytoplasm of the cell.

Germplasm is the living genetic resources such as seeds or tissue that is. maintained for the purpose of animal and plant breeding, preservation and other research uses (Williams, 1991). These resources may take the form of seed collections such as seed banks, trees growing in nurseries, animal.

Gottlieb Haberlandt is known as the father of plant tissue culture.

Several kinds of germplasm collections have evolved over the years in response to particular needs: base collections, back-up collections, active collections, and breeders’ or working collections.

Slow growth storage (also called ‘medium-term conservation’ or ‘minimal growth storage’) is based on the reduction of the metabolic activity (i.e., growth rate) of in vitro shoot cultures by maintaining them on ‘modified culture conditions’.

Micropropagation or tissue culture is the practice of rapidly multiplying plant stock material to produce many progeny plants, using modern plant tissue culture methods.

Tissue is a group of cells that have similar structure and that function together as a unit. A nonliving material, called the intercellular matrix, fills the spaces between the cells. … There are four main tissue types in the body: epithelial, connective, muscle, and nervous. Each is designed for specific functions.

Xavier Bichat introduced word tissue into the study of anatomy by 1801. He was “the first to propose that tissue is a central element in human anatomy, and he considered organs as collections of often disparate tissues, rather than as entities in themselves”.

Plant tissue is a collection of similar cells performing an organized function for the plant. Each plant tissue is specialized for a unique purpose, and can be combined with other tissues to create organs such as leaves, flowers, stems and roots.

The difference between in situ and ex situ conservation is that In-situ conservation connotes the act of conserving wildlife species in their natural habitats of growth. On the other hand, ex situ conservation refers to the efforts of safeguarding wildlife species outside their natural habitats and environments.

In situ refers to the animal’s original home and ex situ describes conservation in which the animal has been moved. … First, In situ conservation aims to conserve the animal’s natural habitat and help wild species, especially endangered species. Free ranging landscapes and national parks are prime examples of in situ.

In-situ conservation deals with the on-site conservation of the wild genetic resources/genetic diversity in natural habitat. … It involves survey, inventorisation and documentation of important medicinal plants in their natural habitat.

The part of Weismann’s theory which proved most vulnerable was his notion that the germ plasm (effectively, genes) was successively reduced during division of somatic cells. As modern genetics developed, it became clear that this idea is wrong in most cases.

Germplasm Bank is a collection of live plant matter, in the form of seeds and spores. Its general mission is Locate, collect and conserve plants considered to be of priority importance to our society and acquiring scientific knowledge which aimed at conservation and use of phylogenetic resources.

Crop improvement refers to the genetic alteration of plants to satisfy human needs. … In the process they transformed elements of these species into crops though genetic alterations that involved conscious and unconscious selection, the differential reproduction of variants.

Collection of variability: – Genetic variability is the root of any breeding programme. – Wild relatives of crops are a source of pre-existing genetic variability. – Collection and preservation of all the different wild varieties, species and relatives of the cultivated species.

Hybrid Maize, Bajra with high yielding property have been successfully developed in India.

Sept 2012 Germplasm Maintenance Maintenance of germplasm includes Monitoring seed viability ™™ Seed viability of conserved germplasm is tested at regular intervals, five years for medium-term storage and ten years for long-term storage Monitoring seed quantity ™™ Seed quantity in medium-term store is recorded every …

In vitro conservation of plant germplasm as growing tissue cultures has potential as a means of conserving forms that cannot easily be kept as seeds, and for some species, the maintenance of cultured plantlets in slow growth is proving more efficient and less expensive than maintaining whole plants.