“Role of the Centre for Pacific Crops and Tree’s in the sustainable conservation and the safe movement of plant material” Valerie Saena Tuia, Logotonu Meleisea Wainaqabete, Amit Sukal, Sainimili Baculacula, Ulamila Lutu, Arshni Shandil, Unaisi Davete and Rohini Prasad Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees, Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Suva, Fiji Abstract: The Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees (CePaCT), a Pacific Genebank, based in Narere Fiji is an investment by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community established in response to the Heads of Agriculture and Forestry Meeting (HOAFS, 1996) recommendation to put in place policies to conserve, protect, and best utilize plant genetic resources in countries and through regional cooperation. CePaCT assists Pacific island countries (PICs) to sustainably conserve and utilize their plant genetic resources as well as sourcing improved crop diversity to address food and nutritional security and for improved resilience to climate change. The Centre uses in vitro technology to conserve collections of some of the Pacific’s important staple crops, and such as taro (Colocasia esculenta) and other edible aroids (alocasia (Alocasia macrorrhizos), swamp taro (Cyrtosperma merkusii), xanthosoma (Xanthosoma sagittifolium)), banana (Musa sp), breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis), cassava (Manihot esculenta), sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) and yam (Dioscorea sp). Other collections conserved by the Centre include kava (Piper methysticum), potato (Solanum tuberosum), vanilla (Vanilla fragrans) and some selected tree species (Pandanus tectorius and Santalum sp). CePaCT conserves a unique global collection of taro, largest in the world, comprising of over 1,100 taro accessions from the Pacific and Asia. CePaCT has a “state of the art” virus indexing facilities that virus test germplasm using internationally approved protocols in order to facilitate distribution of crop diversity (improved and traditional) to farmers. The Centre does virus indexing on aroids, banana, sweet potato and yam. Over 56,000 tissue culture plantlets from 14 crops have been distributed by the CePaCT from January 2001 to June 2012, to 46 countries including 24 PICs. In vitro technology is considered one of the safest and efficient methods available for the international movement of germplasm. Key words: CePaCT, edible aroids, virus indexing, in vitro conservation, resilience, crop diversity 1. Background: The establishment of the Centre for Pacific Crops (CePaCT) by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) is a result of all the past and ongoing efforts that started in early 1990 under a European Union project titled “The provision of tissue culture services to the Pacific region” that was based at the University of the South Pacific in Samoa. The importance of the tissue culture services was further strengthened when the taro industry of both Samoas was devastated by the outbreak of taro leaf blight (TLB) disease in 1993, has resulted in the loss of food security, export market, increased erosion of susceptible traditional varieties and increased vulnerability of other Pacific countries to TLB. The importance of sharing tolerant genetic diversity from outside of Samoa was also realized and taro varieties from Philippines, Palau and Federated State of Micronesia were brought in as tissue culture material to help restored food security. These TLB tolerant lines have formed the basis of new breeding programs to generate new diversity of taro in Samoa as a long term solution to TLB and sustainable food security. The Samoa TLB disaster has also prompted a 5 year AusAID Taro Genetic Resources: Conservation and Utilisation (TaroGen) that began in 1998 and coordinated by SPC. The aim was to re-collect all taro genetic resources of the Pacific, have them characterized, DNA fingerprinted for selection of a core collection and have it virus indexed for sharing by all partners. Capacity building on DNA fingerprinting and virus indexing was provided for regional staff and technology transfer was also part of the project. With funding provided by the AusAID, the Regional Germplasm Centre (RGC) was established, however the RGC has its name changed to CePaCT in 2007 recognizing the importance of trees in the food supply systems and other income generation activities. The initial SPC’s global taro collection comprises of taro established under this AusAID TaroGen regional project. Through importance of SPC networking and sharing of germplasm, the EU Taro Network for the South-east Asia and Oceania (TANSAO) enabled the Pacific countries to access new diversed genepool of Asian taro with tolerant traits to TLB. These new TLB lines progenies of Pacific and Asian parentage are widely distributed within the Pacific for evaluation. The importance of sharing and accessing new diversity outside the region, Pacific countries through SPC have agreed to place Annex 1 regional crop collections held in trust by SPC CePaCT into the Multilateral System (MLS) of the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). In June 2009, Hon Taua Kitiona Seuala, a Samoan Agricultural Minister then on behalf of Pacific Ministers of Agriculture and Forestry has signed the agreement at the 3rd Session of the Treaty Governing Body. All germplasm exchange and distribution from SPC have to be accompanied by the Standard Material Transfer Agreement provided under the ITPGRFA. The use of tissue culture technology by CePaCT involves the growing of crops under aseptic controlled conditions and is widely used for commercial propagation of many plants (Dodds and Lorin., 1982). There are multiple advantages of the in vitro system: [i] as a safe method for preservation and conservation of plants for future use, [ii] all year production of planting material, [iii] plant can be manipulated for increased multiplication rates, [iv] virus-indexed status of the crops allows for safe distribution without any quarantine risks, [v] sterility state of plant material provides for easier access to diversity from within and outside of the region and [vi] cost-effective method for distribution of plant material due to small size, easier and cheaper. The CePaCT continues to provide services to the region through sustainable conservation and utilization of their plant genetic resources as well as sourcing improved crop diversity to address food and nutritional security and for improved resilience to climate change. 2. Conservation: The Centre uses in vitro technology to conserve over 2,000 accessions of some of the Pacific’s important staple crops, and such as taro and other edible aroids (alocasia, swamp taro, xanthosoma), banana, breadfruit, cassava, sweet potato and yam. Other collections conserved by the Centre include kava (Piper methysticum), potato (Solanum tuberosum), vanilla (Vanilla fragrans) and some selected tree species (Pandanus tectorius and Santalum sp). SPC is a current recipient of a long term funding by the Global Crop Diversity Trust (the Trust) recognizing CePaCT asone of the leading Worlds Genebank Centre for conserving a unique in vitro global taro collection of over 1,100 accessions from the Pacific and Asia. SPC is the first non-CGIAR Centre to have received this funding from the Trust. At the request of the countries, the Centre also conserves important cultural collections such as the unique collection of yam (D.alata) from the Federated State of Micronesia, New Caledonia unique fei and maoli popoulu banana collection, taro and banana from French Polynesia as well as swamp taro from Kiribati, Federated State of Micronesia and Tuvalu. The Centre repatriates lost accessions from their traditional collections in the countries from its in vitro master collections for countries such as Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Niue, Palau, PNG, Solomon Islands and Samoa. SPC collaborates with the University of the South Pacific (USP) on the conservation and safety duplication of the CePaCT Pacific collection as a backup to its main master collections conserved at CePaCT in Fiji. 3. Utilisation: The HOAFS 1996 recommendation (Taylor et al., 2003) encourages utilization and sharing of plant genetic resources, thus CePaCT should not be seen as just a museum of plants. CePaCT has been distributing over 56,000 tissue culture plantlets (36,922 tubes) from January 2001 to June 2012, of 14 crops to 46 countries including 24 Pacific island countries (PICS). Crops being distributed to PICs include aroids, banana, bele, breadfruit, cassava, cowpeas, potato, kava, sweet potato and yam. The following PICs that have received germplasm from SPC namely American Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, Federated State of Micronesia, Guam, Hawaii, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, Nauru, Niue, Norfolk Islands, Northern Marianas, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, French Polynesia, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Wallis and Futuna. For the first time SPC has distributed improved crop diversity (banana, cassava, sweet potato and taro) to Pitcairn Islands in May 2012 after several years of delays due to isolation, irregular boat travel schedules and New Zealand biosecurity regulations restricting transit of some of other improved material listed as risky bound for Pitcairn Islands. CePaCT works closely with countries on the evaluation of this germplasm using new evaluation forms developed and information of crops that performed well under local conditions is fed into the Pacific Genetic Resources Database (PacGen) developed by