The Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) is an online portal for information about agricultural genetic resources that are managed by the Agricultural Research Service of USDA, along with U.S. partnering organizations. The content includes general information about ARS animal, microbial and plant germplasm collections, most notably the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS). The NPGS curates more than 600,000 active accessions of living plant material at 20 genebank locations around the U.S., and makes small quantities available globally to plant breeders and other professional scientists. GRIN also documents activities of Crop Germplasm Committees (CGC) that support the NPGS. The CGCs are comprised of public and private sector subject matter experts for a given crop (there are currently 44 CGCs) who voluntarily provide input on technical and operational matters to the NPGS. The site includes two searchable datasets: the ARS Rhizobium collection and Plant Variety Protection Certificates. The Rhizobium collection is living bacteria that nodulate the roots of leguminous plants symbiotically to provide nitrogen fixation. Samples are available to research scientists globally upon request. The Plant Variety Protection (PVP) Certificates are issued by the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) of USDA to provide intellectual property protection to registered new varieties of plants that are propagated by seed or tubers. The GRIN site allows queries of PVPs by certificate number, name of the crop, variety name, or certificate holder, all using data provided by the AMS.
The Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) is an online portal for information about agricultural genetic resources that are managed by the Agricultural Research Service of USDA, along with U.S. partnering organizations. The content includes general information about ARS animal, microbial and plant germplasm collections, most notably the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS). The NPGS curates more than 600,000 active accessions of living plant material at 20 genebank locations around the U.S., and makes small quantities available globally to plant breeders and other professional scientists. GRIN also documents activities of Crop Germplasm Committees (CGC) that support the NPGS. The CGCs are comprised of public and private sector subject matter experts for a given crop (there are currently 44 CGCs) who voluntarily provide input on technical and operational matters to the NPGS. The site includes two searchable datasets: the ARS Rhizobium collection and Plant Variety Protection Certificates. The Rhizobium collection is living bacteria that nodulate the roots of leguminous plants symbiotically to provide nitrogen fixation. Samples are available to research scientists globally upon request. The Plant Variety Protection (PVP) Certificates are issued by the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) of USDA to provide intellectual property protection to registered new varieties of plants that are propagated by seed or tubers. The GRIN site allows queries of PVPs by certificate number, name of the crop, variety name, or certificate holder, all using data provided by the AMS.
The Maize Genetics Cooperation Stock Center is operated by USDA/ARS, located at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign, and integrated with the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS). The center serves the maize research community by collecting, maintaining and distributing seeds of maize genetic stocks, and providing information about maize stocks and the mutations they carry through the Maize Genetics and Genomics Database (MaizeGDB). Users can browse to obtain detailed information about the following stocks: Chromosome 1 Markers Chromosome 2 Markers Chromosome 3 Markers Chromosome 4 Markers Chromosome 5 Markers Chromosome 6 Markers Chromosome 7 Markers Chromosome 8 Markers Chromosome 9 Markers Chromosome 10 Markers Unplaced Genes Multiple Genes Rare Isozyme B-Chromosome Alien Addition Trisomic Tetraploid Cytoplasmic-Sterile / Restorer Cytoplasmic Trait Toolkit B-A Translocations (Basic Set) B-A Translocations (Others) Inversion Reciprocal Translocations (wx1 and Wx1 marked) Stock records include information on availability, annotations, related records (genotypic variations, phenotypes), GRIN (Germplasm Resources Information Network) information, and offsite resources.
MaizeGDB is a community-oriented, long-term, federally funded informatics service to researchers focused on the crop plant and model organism Zea mays. Genomic, genetic, sequence, germplasm, gene product, metabolic pathways, functional characterization, literature reference, diversity, and expression are among the datatypes stored at MaizeGDB. At the project's website are custom interfaces enabling researchers to browse data and to seek out specific information matching explicit search criteria. First released in 1991 with the name MaizeDB, the Maize Genetics and Genomics Database, now MaizeGDB (since 2003), is funded, developed, and hosted by the USDA-ARS located at Ames, Iowa.
The National Cotton Variety Test is an on-going standardized cotton research database originating in 1960 and covers the entire US Cotton Belt.
GRIN-Global is an ongoing international collaborative project to develop shared and open-source applications that help manage plant germplasm collections. The software was jointly developed by the Agricultural Research Service of USDA, Global Crop Diversity Trust, and Bioversity International, with the first version released in December 2011. The ARS has used GRIN-Global to manage its plant germplasm collections, the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System, since November 2015. GRIN-Global is an extension of Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) information management system, which was first developed by ARS beginning in the mid-1980s. GRIN-Global is comprised of a suite of computer applications that are used internally by genebank staff to curate collections, as well as a public website through which scientists can query the database and request samples of germplasm through a shopping cart process.