National Gene Bank of Plants of Ukraine

National Gene Bank of Plants of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Національний Центр генетичних ресурсів рослин України) is a Ukrainian gene bank (seed bank) located in Kharkiv.[citation needed]

The bank was created in 1990s as part of the Plant Genetic Resources of Ukraine (PGRU) project, an initiative of the Ukrainian Academy of Agrarian Sciences [uk] (and supervised by the Plant Production Institute named after V.Ya. Yuriev [uk][1]). By early 2021 it has collected 151,300 specimens belonging to 544 crops and 1,802 species of plants. In terms of its volume and diversity, the Gene Bank was one of the 10 largest gene banks in the world.[2] In mid-May 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the bank was reported destroyed by the Russians.[3][4][5] It was later clarified that the facility had been bombed,[6] and that two or three dozen thousand samples destroyed only represented a small fraction of the collection, and the majority of the collection was still being protected in an underground warehouse.[failed verification][7]

References edit

  1. ^ "History of the Institute - Інститут рослинництва ім. В. Я. Юр'єва НААН". yuriev.com.ua. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  2. ^ "National Center for Plant Genetic Resources of Ukraine - Інститут рослинництва ім. В. Я. Юр'єва НААН". yuriev.com.ua. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  3. ^ "The invaders destroyed the National Gene Bank of Plants of Ukraine". odessa-journal.com. 2022-05-16. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  4. ^ Soldak, Katya. "Tuesday, May 17. Russia's War On Ukraine: News And Information From Ukraine". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  5. ^ "Військові рф повністю знищили єдиний в Україні генетичний банк рослин". www.ukrinform.ua (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  6. ^ Duszyński J, McNutt M, Zagorodny A (13 June 2022). "A future for Ukrainian science". Science (Editorial.). 376 (6599) (First release ed.): 1249. Bibcode:2022Sci...376.1249D. doi:10.1126/science.add4088. PMID 35695734. S2CID 249623002.
  7. ^ "Thousands of cultivars ready for seeding have been destroyed, but Ukraine's plant gene bank mostly survived, says Plant Institute researcher". The Insider (in Russian). Retrieved 2022-05-19.