CIFST Webinar: Preserving Plant Genetic Resources for Food Security

Topic: Preserving Plant Genetic Resources for Food Security

Cultivated plants are supplying nutrition to humans and animals and have many other uses. Changes in climate, farming practices, consumer needs and adaptation to resist steadily changing pests and diseases require ongoing efforts in plant breeding. The raw material for adapting to all these changes faced by farmers rests in the genetic diversity of crop plants and crop wild relatives. Conservations and sustainable use of these resources of relevance for Canadian agriculture is supported by the Canadian national genebank for seed germplasm at Plant Gene Resources of Canada (PGRC), located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. This presentation describes the context and highlights some of the contributions made by PGRC.

Event Details:

Wednesday, October 20, 2021
12:00 - 12:45 p.m. EST

Our Speaker:

Dr. Axel Diederichsen, Research Scientist, Curator, Plant Gene Resources of Canada (PGRC)

Axel Diederichsen works as curator and research scientist at the Canadian national genebank for plant genetic resources for food and agriculture at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He completed his undergraduate studies in agronomy and earned his Ph.D. degree in plant breeding from the Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany. He oversees the operation of Plant Gene Resources of Canada and has conducted studies using agro-botanical and taxonomical approaches in cultivated plants. He is engaged in several fora at the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations that deal with plant genetic resources.