Abstract
Plant breeding as an important discipline in agriculture started in Croatia during the last decades of XIX century at several institutions and farms, but was mainly focused on arable grains, but to less extent to fodder, and other crops. The efforts in the research, collecting and evaluation of genetic resources of fodder crops started in the second half of XX century, but were interrupted and ceased by the war in 1990-ies, with a part of material being lost. The activities started almost from scratch by establishing the Croatian Gene Bank in early 1990ties that existed only for few years. A new National Plant Gene Bank was established in 2004 as a network working in synergy with the SEEDNet programme, and was directed by National Plant Genetic Resources Programme based on the valid international treaties on biodiversity, and conducted according to good practice in genetic resources maintenance and research, with the support of the Ministry of Agriculture and EU funds. The paper presents the short outline of the research of the genetic resources of fodder crops.
Highlights
The size of Croatia is relatively small to European ranges (56.594 km2), but it still has a huge variability in natural conditions, including climate zones, relief, soils, and vegetation
Such natural conditions predetermine the variety of agricultural systems and production niches, including horticultural production, arable crop production, fodder crops and livestock production
In 2009 Croatia accepted the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources in Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), and joined the AEGIS, the European Genebank Integrated System of gene bank maintenance within the framework of ECPGR, maintaining collections under specific standards of quality and expertize, and has free access according to international regulations
Summary
The size of Croatia is relatively small to European ranges (56.594 km2), but it still has a huge variability in natural conditions, including climate zones, relief, soils, and vegetation. A new National Bank of Plant Genes was founded as a network of institutions It started to operate in a synergy with the SEEDNet programme funded by the Swedish International Development Agency, Swedish Biodiversity Centre and NordGen. SEEDNet was a network of 12 countries from SE Europe established for the period of ten years, supporting long-term conservation and sustainable utilisation of genetic resources, training courses and first expeditions. In 2009 Croatia accepted the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources in Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), and joined the AEGIS, the European Genebank Integrated System of gene bank maintenance within the framework of ECPGR, maintaining collections under specific standards of quality and expertize, and has free access according to international regulations.
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