Abstract
Plant germplasm is an essential element in crop production and improvement programs worldwide. In the U.S., this fact quickly became a stark reality for the first settlers to the east coast from Europe. Subsequently, government officials, recognizing a dearth of native crops, initiated modest efforts to introduce and test seeds and plants from abroad. In 1898, the U.S. Department of Agriculture established the Seed and Plant Introduction Section to provide for the worldwide acquisition of plant materials [1]. In the same year, new introductions were assigned Plant Introduction (PI) numbers and distributed to research stations and universities for testing. Data compilation for USDA Plant Inventories also started in 1898 and continues to the present. During the past 90 years, more than 518,000 PI numbers have been assigned and data have been compiled for 196 published inventories.
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© 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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White, G.A., Briggs, J.A. (1989). Plant germplasm acquisition and exchange. In: Knutson, L.V., Stoner, A.K. (eds) Biotic Diversity and Germplasm Preservation, Global Imperatives. Beltsville Symposia in Agricultural Research, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2333-1_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2333-1_20
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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