Plant Genetic Resources Centre (PGRC)

Plant Genetic Resources Centre (PGRC) has been established in 1987 to provide the desired germplasm in the crop development program of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI). The head quarter of this centre is located at BARI campus, Gazipur. The center has directed its activities with five regional stations located at Ishwaradi, Jamalpur, Jashore, Rangpur and Khagrachari and three clonal gene banks located at Sylhet, Barisal and Rajshahi. The main objectives of this center are (1) Survey, exploration and collection of various indigenous crop varieties and their wild relatives used in hereditary farming system, (2) conservation and proper management of germplasm, (3) regeneration, characterization and evaluation of collected germplasm, (4) supply and exchange of germplasm with relevant information of desired characteristics for research and crop improvement programme. A total of 11686 germplasm has been conserved at mid-term (4 to 6⁰C), long-term (-18 to -22⁰C) and field gene bank of PGRC upto June/2021.

The germplasm of recalcitrant seed producing crops and vegetatively propagated crops is being conserved at Sylhet, Barisal and Rajshahi as Field Gene Bank and Clonal Gene Bank of the Plant Genetic Resources Center. Among the collected germplasm, 5611 germplasm morphologically characterized from July/2017 to June/2021. Scientists from various government and non-government organizations are working on the improvement of the crop varieties with the promising germplasm collected and several varieties have already been released. Molecular characterization is being undertaken to ensure legal rights or intellectual property rights (IPR) over geographical indicator crops (GIs) and also to reduce duplication of germplasm. PGRC also conserve germplasm using In vitro technique, at present 9 germplasm of potato, 3 of yam and 3 of mint are being conserved in in vitro laboratory. Under the germplasm supply and distribution program, from July 2016 to June 2021, 3696 germplasm were distributed among the students and researchers of different universities and institutes.