Funding from Denmark helped us catch up on germination tests

2017.12.07

To perform germination tests is important. It is needed for controlling that each accession is still of good quality but also to investigate that each sample actually contains the right species and variation. But it is a work both costly and time consuming.

  In 2015 NordGen was granted funding from the Danish NaturErhvervstyrelsen, today known as

– The funding was granted for three years, with the purpose of catching up on germination tests on 5 000 accessions that hadn’t been conducted due to a lack of resources, says Jette Nydam Hansen, Genetic Resources Officer at NordGen. Before 2015 NordGen conducted about 3 000 germination tests each year. But with the contribution from NaturErhvervstyrelsen another person could work in the seed lab. That lead to the fact that NordGen during last year alone could conduct germination tests on 5 100 different accessions. – Thanks to these money we have now managed to perform all the germination tests which we behind with. So now we’re in phase again, Johan Axelsson, Head of Nordgen Seed Laboratory, says.