The production of a priority list of crop wild relatives for Ireland
The aims of this project were:1. Critical overview of Markkola (2005) who prepared a previous list of Crop Wild Relatives based
upon IUCN Threat categories.
2.The establishment of criteria for Priority Listing including reference to Annex I of ITPGRFA, food
potential, actual and potential economic benefits, socio-economic issues and population viability for
exploitation.
3.Application of IUCN status to those species qualifying which do not occur on the Markkola’s list.
4.Production of a Priority List of Crop Wild Relatives for Ireland based on Criteria 2 above.
5.Pilot field study in SE Irelands on populations of a species (Black mustard) with a view to
establishing a protocol for survey of other such population data-deficient species.
6.The collection of seed of black mustard for genebank storage and genetic investigation by UCC of
selected populations from SE Ireland to establish its genetic characteristics.
7.Production of final report.
Methods:
Two publications Census catalogue of the flora of Ireland (Scannell & Synnott, 1987) and A
catalogue of alien plants in Ireland (Reynolds, 2002) were used to provide an inventory of the entire
flora of Ireland numbering c 2,000 species. The first step in establishing the CWR list was to screen
the entire flora for the presence of those taxa listed on Annex I of the ITPGRFA. The second step was
to screen the entire list of the Irish flora for those species which are not on Annex I but are known to
have actual or potential for food, agriculture or forestry from standard texts and websites.
The result of this was to arrive at a list of 181 CWRs for Ireland, each according to a set of 20 criteria
which are listed on an EXCEL spreadsheet and Access database,. Summary accounts of the uses and
value of each and whether there are known cultivars of Irish origin derived from them are also
presented. Each species was then ranked and scored on a scale of 0-12 against four criteria and
Priority was accorded to those which scored 8 or greater.
Results:
Following the compilation of a list of 181 species of Crop Wild Relatives for Ireland, 31 are
considered to warrant Priority-listing for Ireland. Twenty one of the species are wild, five species are
alien though all are well-established in the wild and five are cultivars which, occur as relics of or
escapes from cultivation. Sixteen species on the current Priority list are of value and importance as
Forage crops, three of which are Clovers and the remainder are grasses. The rest of the list contains
five cereals whilst ten are of importance as Food crops, nine as herbs/vegetables and one fruit.
A priority now should be the collection of seed material for all these species for storage in the national
seed and gene bank with duplicates being lodged abroad. Comprehensive collections of some of the
Legume and Grass Forages are being maintained at Oakpark but some species-Meadow and Red
fescues are poorly represented and some not at all-Sheep’s fescue. Those species should be accorded
priority for collection.
The cereals on the list are reasonably represented in seed/gene banks with the exception of Rye but
recent collections for the Landrace project have increased the number of accessions. Some collections
of the herbs/vegetables notably Wild turnip and the Water-cresses are minimally or not at all
represented, including Wild carrot. There is also a pressing need to increase the number of accessions
of the four Protected and RDB-listed species. The current collections are inadequate to ensure the
maintenance of viable, genetically-diverse stock. A practical approach to the collection of the Priority
species would be to maximise efforts by concentrating of sites, such as species-rich forage areas and
on sites on which a number of Priority CWRs occur together. The next stage should aim for the
collection of a comprehensive range of accessions for all 31 Priority CWR species.
The Pilot study on Black Mustard (Brassica nigra) demonstrated some practical difficulties in that
some sites previously described for the species were found to be in error and only four authentic
accessions were collected. The very wet summer also made the collection of dry material for genetic
analysis difficult and it was necessary to have seed germinated in the laboratory to provide samples.
Project Coordinator: Dr Tom Curtis