Collaborative Exploration of Plant Genetic Resources in Vietnam, 2016

The National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) and the Plant Resources Center (PRC) of the Vietnamese Academy of Agricultural Science conducted a collaborative exploration of plant genetic resources in Vietnam in 2016. The exploration was done within the framework of Plant Genetic Resources Asia (PGRAsia) project funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan. The project started in 2014, and here we report the findings from the third year of collaborative exploration in Vietnam. In October 2016, we surveyed the Muong Lat district and the Ba Thuoc district of Thanh Hoa province, and the Con Cuong district of Nghe An province. A total of 77 accessions were collected. These included: 35 amaranths (Amaranthus ssp.), 22 pumpkins (Cucurbita moschata), 9 cucumbers (Cucumis sativus), 9 melons (Cucumis melo), 1 watermelon (Citrullus lanatus), and 1 sesame (Sesamum indicum). All accessions were stored as seeds at PRC, and subsets were transferred to the Genetic Resources Center, NARO