Cereal such as wheat, rice, corn, maize, oats, sorghum, millets, triticale, and rye make up the base of human and animal foods and feeds, respectively. Many of these species contribute significantly to the sustainability of agricultural production systems in Brazil, generating jobs and boosting the country's economy. Collectively, these cultures add up to 19 millions of cultivated hectares and 47 million tons of produced grains, which is almost half of the country's total grain production. Howev

Status: Completed     Start date: Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2009

Genetic Vegetable resources, globally, involve a number of around 300,000 identified species, of which 30,000 are edible and only 30 consist of foods that feed the world's population. However, from this total, only three species provide 50% of proteins necessary in a regular diet (rice, wheat and corn). This situation has been stimulating a great number of researchers in the quest to increase the number of species dedicated to feed the population. Brazil is considered the world's greatest source

Status: Completed     Start date: Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2009

Germplasm banks have as their main purpose to get together in one place part of the genetic variability (germplasm), in order to prevent the loss of genes or gene combinations (genetic erosion), thus ensuring a broad genetic basis for research programs. Germplasm banks are usually made up of local races (ethnovarieties), improved varieties and wild species of the same genus. And because they bring together genetic constitutions of different origins and different breeding levels, they can be grea

Status: Completed     Start date: Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2009