Responsible: Roel Hoekstra
The Dutch - German Potato Collection
The collection is being maintained at the Centre for Genetic Resources, The Netherlands (CGN). It consists of wild and Andean cultivated potato species. Background and availability of the collection are described. Passport and evaluation data are downloadable. Passport data of those accessions that received a CGN accession number can be searched on-line. Furtheron addresses and web sites of major potato genebanks, inventories, literature references as well as links to some other potato sites are presented. Several European potato variety collections are listed in the document on the EU project on potato genetic resources.
History
In 1974 an agreement was signed between the Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Forestry (now: Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection) of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (now: Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation) of the Netherlands concerning cooperative activities in the field of potato genetic resources. As a consequence the "German-Netherlands Potato Department" was established in the "Institut für Pflanzenbau und Pflanzenzüchtung der Bundesforschungsanstalt für Landwirtschaft Braunschweig-Völkenrode" (FAL), with the objective to maintain genetic resources of the potato. The existing collections from both countries the Erwin Bauer Sortiment (EBS), maintained at the Max-Planck Institute in Köln, and the Wageningse Aardappel Collectie (WAC), maintained at the Department of Plant Breeding of the Agricultural University of Wageningen, were merged at the FAL in Braunschweig (Lange, 1976). In 1984 it became a project of the German-Netherlands Board for Plant Genetic Resources. January 1995 the Dutch-German Potato Collection was transferred to the Centre for Genetic Resources The Netherlands (CGN) of Wageningen University and Research Centre. That part of the collection that can be freely distributed (screened for quarantine diseases; enough seeds available; good germinability) is included in the 'regular' CGN collections.
Collection
The collection contains about 1950 accessions of 117 wild species and 750 accessions of 5 primitive (or traditional Andean cultivated) species originating from 12 countries in South and North America. Peru has the highest diversity for potato genetic resources, but it is still under represented in our collection. Peru has been too dangerous for intensive collecting for a period of about 15 years, due to terrorist activities.
For a list of available species per taxonomic series including general info on Endosperm Balance Number, chromosome number, region of origin, altitude range and 
go here.
Donors
The former Dutch (WAC) and German (EBS) collections comprise 40% of the current accessions. They include 94 accessions of cultivated potato species collected 1955 by Toxopeus during the Dutch Expedition to Peru, as well as 77 accessions of 28 wild species collected 1959 by Ross and Rimpau during the German Andes Expedition to Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. Data cards from WAC 1-953 are available as PDF (see Potato links). The collection was substantially expanded with material from the Argentine genebank INTA-Balcarce. The INTA material accounts for 24% of the collection. Including the expeditions from Ross & Rimpau and Toxopeus, 26% of the collection originates directly from collecting expeditions with Dutch or German participation. More information about collecting expeditions including mission reports, collecting forms and background information is here available. Seed exchange with other genebanks has taken place too. Furthermore material was received from universities active in the field of potato taxonomy.
Some seed samples from the expeditions may not be viable. Therefore it will be attempted to regenerate them, before these accessions are included in the overview.
The material collected in Peru 1999 was transformed into true seed at CIP-Huancayo. Next to Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, Peru is member of the Andean Pact. The Andean Pact adopted Decision 391 on a "Common Regime on Access to Genetic Resources", a procedurally complex law, which entered into force mid-1996. Spring 2010 a new law on genetic resources has passed the Peruvian parliament, implementing the CBD and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. USDA and CIP are encouraged to re-negociate an export permission for the 1999 collected germplasm with the Peruvian authorities. CGN was no partner in the 5 year collecting agreement 1998-2002.
Safety duplication
A safety duplicate, containing a multiplication sample (à 200 seeds) and at least 250 seeds from the bulk, is being kept in a storage facility of IPK-Gatersleben, on the peninsula Poel, Germany. Earlier (1981), potato samples were exchanged with the Commonwealth Potato Collection (CPC). 770 samples have been received and about 570 samples were sent to Scotland then. Since February 2008 most of the accessions were triplicated at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which was donated by Norway to the international community and is being supported by the Global Crop Diversity Trust.
International treaties
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was signed by over 150 governments at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The CBD became effective as international law on 29 December 1993. More information on the CBD and its international implementation is available at the secretariat www.biodiv.org. The current Dutch policy concerning access and benefit sharing related to genetic resources can be viewed at the web-site CBD Focal Point, under the button 'policies'. Furthermore, several of your questions may have been answered under the button 'Frequently asked questions'.
The EU established an Access and Benefits Sharing Portal supporting the CBD.
The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture was approved 3 November 2001 by the Conference of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which entered into force on 29 June 2004 (www.planttreaty.org). It revises the International Undertaking (1983) to promote international harmony for access to PGR for food and agriculture. It provides a framework to ensure access to PGR and to related knowledge, technologies, and internationally agreed funding. Collection holders (genebanks) have to determine which part of their accessions will be put into the multilateral system. They are free to make also other crops available under the terms and conditions of the international Standard Material Transfer Agreement (like CGN did). To receive material that has been put into the multilateral system or was made available under these terms and conditions, the recipient has to sign the Standard Material Transfer Agreement .
The Global Crop Diversity Trust is prioritizing the Annex 1 crops of the International Treaty and developed Regional as well as Crop Strategies for the conservation of the germplasm.
Passing on germplasm or derived material to other users
In case the germplasm, or material derived from it, will be passed on, then also the conditions under which the germplasm was received from CGN have to be passed on to the new recipient. For material acquired under the SMTA, the user should use the SMTA for this purpose. In case the germplasm was received from CGN in the period September 1998 till February 2007 under the previous MTA (incl. general MTA for private breeding companies and Wageningen University & Research Institutes), then the user is obliged to explicitly state to the new recipient/institution that he/she is also bound by the provision of that MTA (version1998, version20040628) and provide the recipient with all information on that germplasm as supplied by CGN. This implements that also following recipients need to be informed by their material donor. Two minor changes from version 1998 -> 2004: in paragraph 2 is being referred to the International Treaty for PGR instead of the FAO International Undertaking on PGR and in the first line of paragraph 3 was added "or its genetic parts or components".
Implementation of the IT-PGRFA for potato
Annex 1 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (see FAO-Treaty site) lists the crops covered by the multilateral system. It includes Solanum section tuberosa and excludes S. phureja. Using the system of Hawkes (1990), CGN considers Solanum section tuberosa to be the species in the family Solanaceae, genus Solanum, subgenus Potatoe, section Petota, which includes the subsections Estolonifera and Potatoe. According to Hawkes, section Petota is maybe better known as Tuberarium, a name taken from Dunal (1852) by the German taxonomist George Bitter (1912). Subsection Estolonifera consists of the series: Etuberosa and Juglandifolia. The latter contains the species S. juglandifolium, sitiens and ochranthum. Based on molecular data, the species from this series are now considered to be much more related to tomato then to potato (Contreras-M. & Spooner, 1999). Therefore CGN has put the accessions from these species under the tomato crop (following USDA genebanks). Also species from section Basarthrum, like S. canense and fraxinifolium, as well as the S. nigrum like species S. chaparense are considered to be non-section Petota species. These species (incl. S. phureja) are submitted to CBD regulations when gathered after 1993. Because CGN decided to make this germplasm available under the terms and conditions of the SMTA, also for the non-Petota accessions a SMTA has to be signed.