The national genebank of Agroscope yesterday, today and tomorrow

The genbank of Agroscope ACW is more than one hundred years old and landraces, collected at the beginning of 1900 are still conserved and available. The actual conservation techniques allow the long term preservation of an important number of species. For the species conserved by seeds, the backup conservation is carried out in Norway, at the global genebank of Svalbard (Svalbard Global Seed Vault). Varieties of vegetatively conserved species have to be cultivated with several plants at several locations. Since 1999, the National plan of action for the conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture makes it possible to ensure not only the conservation but also the characterisation and agronomic evaluation of the conserved varieties. A database makes these data available for everybody. Different approaches to improve the management of the database are discussed.