Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

The meeting was called to order by Robert Bernatsky, current Chair of the RTAC. Dr. Tom Burr introduced himself as the new Administrative Advisor, having started as the Director of the NYSAES in January.

Cucurbita has been obtained from Rutgers. Already had maxima and mushchaga and separated it to send to Ames, IA location. Accessions have been cataloged and the database and books will go along with it. Pedigrees still have to be traced. 3,800 samples distributed this past year. In terms of Cryogenic storage we have been looking at the viability. Some of it is not as cold hardy. We are looking for 40% viability to be able to consider it successful. Material that was less than 40% has been re-processed to get the viability numbers higher. Forty accessions of grape from a project in Minnesota (Mr. Albert Swenson deceased) was acquired.

There was some really interesting material to add to the collection. Joe Postman & Rich Hannan have collected some Malus orientalis recently and added that to our collection. One of the more visible SCA's is the one with Herb Aldwinckle with fire blight resistance. There is a project with Minnesota and New Zealand and scab resistance is going well with a possibility that we will have a useful batch of germplasm. There is potential value in this material for apple rootstocks. New project with Kearneysville in the NAA that will hopefully expand. The PGRU also had a very successful public open house in September, with the possibility of a repeat in 2007 to coincide with the NYSAES 125th Anniversary open house.

Tom Burr attended meetings in January that we had sent the budget request prior. They allocated $145K for 2005 and would like to request more for 2006 at the meeting in July. Do the NE directors still supply money to NE9 from their funds? Have heard two years ago that there was discussions that they would not want to give monies to NE-09. The vote was done the previous summer and they are not reducing the budget amount.

What about Bush's Hatch proposals? 2005 is already done, 2006 was approved in the house and increased slightly. It will be on the cut list in 2007. Formula fundings are important. If the formula funding disappear, the breeding programs will disappear. The outcry was tremendous when this was initially put in the Presidents budget. Many Universities have 100's of faculty on the formula funding. This will still be a year to year situation. There is an image in OMB that the only properly funded research is competitive. They dictate where monies go and good research is overlooked in favor of grant placements. We have been going through this for 5 years. Any congressional add on's that have been terminated have to be restored before they can add any more. The whole grape program is a congressional add-on and it is a third of our federal budget. We need to have our act together on the State & Federal level and say what a budget cut will mean for public, state, economy, jobs, etc. We need to have workshops and prepare something. We need documentation.

When the NE9 directors got together the focus was 100% intent on restoring federal formula funding. They could not think of anything else. Need to talk about impact of the research rather than just saying you need this because salaries are going up. We have some very long term Cornell employees that support our farm activities. If we didn't get the NE-09 money, we may have to move some researchers out of here to maintain these people. We will have a one page write-up of impact for the 2006-2007 budget request. Maybe increase the request to match the percentage that the Hatch was increased. Ask for $145k and the 5% increase Hatch got.

News from NPGS: There have been some substantial site increases at Geneva and Pullman, WA. For each year that there is no increase, the discretionary funds are decreased 5% per annum. In 2005 all ARS budgets received .8% rescission. ARS budget is part of the discretionary budget, not part of mandatory budget, so we are particularly susceptible to being squeezed.

National Programs: Our research is now organized into National Programs. The research here is part of 301. That includes Gene bank, genetic mapping, genetic enhancement. We are just starting the second cycle, moving into the first retrospective review. There will be a customer stakeholder workshop this fall. There will also be a non-financial audit that has to do with how we do plants and physical security at our sites. The audits are almost done and OIG seems pleased.

NP disease recovery system: Presidential directive last year that says it is suppose to plan to recover as soon as possible after a natural or human mediated crop destruction event. Asked all CGC's to include crop vulnerability reports and most reports were handed over to steering committees. Experiment stations should take advantage of this initiative, can be a source for Plant Disease Recovery System. In process of priority setting for which diseases have the highest priorities. Geneva was put on the list.

Some sites are higher on the list, like Ft. Collins and already received some funds. Somewhere down the line there will be resources above and beyond your budget for security. I believe you are all on second tier because you are a Plant Introduction station. Do you know what some of the issues came out of this audit were? What specifically? The audit that made OIG interested in it was one read about the starling project 'an un-approved event' transgenic material was mixed in corn flower and got into Tostitos, etc. Someone asked about our genebank materials. They asked how we manage them. Said they were managed according to our federal regulations. Not sent to requestors without APHIS permit numbers, etc. Lead to discussions because the Clinton admin and Bush admin said approved transgenic materials should not be labeled. Policy that we are implementing now. It says that because of rapidly changing nature of plant breeding and genetics, when material comes in we have to ask when it was bred and how it was maintained. In terms of feasibility, if one of our partners like the plant protection sends stuff to Ft. Collins, they send a questionnaire asking if the material is transgenic or non-transgenic, but now it says that we cannot ask that question. We try to collect as much info as possible to help our users decide if they want the material and how to use it if they do. The policy is being incorporated into all our genebank manuals and will be posted then. Policy determined above ARS level.

In the area of transgenics, Kearneysville developed plum pox agent that is transgenic and APHIS is saying it will be allowed for release. It seems like it is going to float. Being recognized as something that should be released. Not sure it can be patented because of the amount of people involved. Can it be used in breeding purposes? Plant patent law is ambiguous in that regard. It really says it cannot be used in the US, which means you can take it to Canada and do it. We don't as a rule go for utility patents in varieties. Is it USDA's position that patented varieties should be allowed to be used for breeding purposes? USDA material, yes, but not sure about others. Who should we transmit information to?, whether plum variety will be patented and second what is the progress? This dates back to last summer. One of the participants asked about plant patent and indicated that it needs to be tested.

It is a very trying budget cycle for the State. SUNY funds are being cut even though tuition is increasing. This year it was 85 M SUNY cut, which doesn't help Geneva at all. We have very little tuition here. Dean Henry and others saw this coming and did a lot of lobbying in Albany and had Senator Nozzolio here. The idea was to give Nozzolio some ammunition to go to Albany and talk about applied research, the other reason was the Cornell Ag & Food Tech Park. Some of our local Senators have a lot of policital capitol invested here. Show types of work that Cornell Scientists do to support food technologies, wine industry, food safety, etc.

The NYSAES has initiated 160 small food companies in New York. Also helped that our President from Cornell called the Governor and explained what the cut would mean to the Land Grant Commission of Cornell and how it would affect the stake-holders. We ended up with no cuts. We were looking at 10% cut and all Hatch . We came through this year OK, but we still have our other challenges like salaries going up and other increases. The other that came out is that our college will be looking at developing one pagers we can use in Washington. Saw what happened to the state, moving forward with ARS building here, which is extremely important event for us in Geneva. Very positive about future of Station, have some excellent scientists with the Grape Genomicist crew NE9 has. Geneva will be leading force in grape enology and viticulture in New York state.

Bill Nelson was talking about National Clean Plant Network FY05 proposed and has been done to decrease funding through 2008. Very important program with an emphasis on virus breeding material. Suggestions for PGRU: One suggestion is the PGRU should hold more developed germplasm. It is often hard to get a hold of materials. Recently, want to get beans that hold yellow virus resistance, can't find them. This problem was discussed at the last CGC. The policy in ARS is that if it is protected or registered in Crop Science it goes to Ft. Collins. We are talking about varieties from breeding program that no longer exist. Preference is given to wild species when some of the developed materials should be given the priorities. A lot of breeding programs disappear and no one saves them. The CGC's do a good job of monitoring everything that is going on, but you pointed out one spot that is a problem. Periodically one or several scientist that is a member of the committee would go through an old list and check it against GRIN to see if it is there, if not they'll put out an email looking for that particular accession.

The CGC's are very good about monitoring collections that are in danger due to breeders that retire. Dick Robinson was pouring his stuff in a bin. PGRU took what we could from his field. The best person to help you is the breeder. If you go with the Breeder, they will tell you what is wrong with their varieties. The hardest is when the retirement has occurred and the collection has to be culled through. Jerry Marx was dying and had scientists go through his collection and helped expedite culling through it. Recently, we sent a van down to pick up a collection from a family member. A list of the collection was sent to Cris Cramer to go through. CGC for tomato, Al Stoner identified a tomato collection , there were 15-20 that weren't in there and we went and got them. It is a continual process. Developed traits in breeder lines get lost. The CGC should request them as they relate to different curators. 95 % are deposited in Ft. Collins. Quite often, whoever is hired after the person has left they have no interest in maintaining the cultures. Would love to have the early varieties, but the wild material is richer in diversity. NAFEX. Seed Savers Associations, etc. there are places out there that do that. We have given a priority to genetic diversity and not heirloom diversity. The Johnny Appleseed gene pool is very narrow.

Plan for next year : Ames, IA along with other groups. RTAC and CGC chairs as well as PGOC . 3rd-4th week in July. Donglin Zhang will be new Chair next year. After IA, he invited us to Maine the next year.

Approximately 11,700 accessions of seed propagated crops (tomato, onion, squash, radish, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, other cole crops, celery, ground cherry, asparagus, and buckwheat) were maintained. There were 300 accessions regenerated; 230 biennial crop accessions were grown to produce plants for use in seed production in 2005. In 2004 there were 3873 seed lots distributed in 270 orders (1657 seed samples for 103 seed orders were distributed to users in the states that are part of NE-9). In 2005, up through April 1, there were 1149 seed lots distributed in 95 seed orders (238 samples for 21 orders were distributed to users in the states that are part of NE-9). Approximately 5200 accessions of vegetatively-propagated crops (apple, grape and sour cherry) were maintained In 2004 there were 7202 accessions distributed in 238 orders (5146 accessions for 78 orders were distributed to users in the states that are part of NE-9). In 2005, up through April 1, there were 1769 accessions distributed in 83 orders (941 accessions for 21 orders were distributed to users in the states that are part of NE-9). Most of the samples of the clonal collection were for DNA and leaf samples for DNA extraction, but multiple samples of cuttings, pollen and seeds of wild species were sent as well. The future availability of vegetable crop germplasm has been assured through several new initiatives. The tomatillo collection was increased in size by a factor of 3.5 with the incorporation of 100 accessions recently collected in Mexico. The Cucurbita collections of Ovid Shifriss (Rutgers University) were acquired and are now being evaluated for incorporation in the Cucurbita collections of Geneva, Ames, IA, and Griffin, Georgia. Because short-day onions cannot be regenerated at Geneva, an ongoing SCA was continued with New Mexico State University for regeneration of short-day onions. Approximately 243 digital images were recorded from 143 accessions of tomato, onion and winter squash. These are being processed and will be loaded onto GRIN. Characterization data was recorded on 118 accessions of onions and tomato for minimal descriptor lists for loading on GRIN to enable stakeholders to better search for their requirements. In apple, 171 additional accessions were characterized with 25 descriptors. Morphological characterization with priority descriptors in grape is continuing with nearly 95% of the collection completed. Digital images were taken on 130 additional apple accessions bringing the total to 900. Additional disease resistance screening of seedlings from the collection of wild apple from Armenia as well as grafted seedlings from Kazakhstan inoculated with fire blight was completed in 2004 as a result of the SCA with H. Aldwinckle. Preliminary results indicate that both fire blight and apple scab resistance is present in the genotypes tested. If durable, they could be important new sources of disease resistance genes for use in apple breeding programs. As of fall 2004, 600 of the 1200 Central Asian seedlings of M. sieversii fruited and have been characterized for horticultural traits. In addition, we completed digital imaging on fruits of 465 of those seedlings. In 2005 we expect to complete 200 additional seedlings that will fruit for the first time. Cryopreservation in apple is nearly complete with 37 more samples preserved in 2005. In 2004 we processed 120 new accessions with the recovery tests completed in March 2005. We found that 50% of those had low viability which was expected because this group included a large number of accessions representing Malus species that originated in mild climates. This group provides our collaborators at NCGRP a group of accessions to investigate alternative methods of cryogenic storage. In 2004 and 2005.we reprocessed 123 apple accessions that had confirmed low viability (<30% viable) after the first processing run. As we calculated based on previous investigations, a significant number of these would have improved viability. For the 103 processed in 2004, graft recovery tests in April 2005 showed that 72 of these accessions had viability >40%. The 31 that remained < 30% will be part of further investigations. Therefore, overall, >2300 accessions or 95% of the collection are backed up. We completed graft recovery assays on apple buds stored for 15 years and found no decline in viability as compared to the same accessions tested at eight years in storage. Nearly 50% of the tart cherry security backup via cryopreservation is completed. We are also collaborating with NCGRP on a newly-initiated project to determine strategies to preserve alleles (in the form of seeds) from wild accessions of Vitis and Malus collections. Using SSR markers, we determined strategies for preserving for the long term, seeds and pollen of wild germplasm to supplement seed and clones from original collections.

Baldo, A.M., L.D. Robertson, and J.A. Labate. 2005. Highly polymorphic genes in cultivated tomato. HortScience (in press).
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Baldo, A.M., D. Huntley, L.D. Robertson, and J.A. Labate. 2005. High-throughput SNP prediction in tomatoes based on ESTs. p. 7 In Final Abstracts Guide, Plant and Animal Genome XIII, San Diego, CA.
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Cramer, C. and L.D. Robertson. 2004. Seed Regeneration of Short-Day Onion Accessions in the U. S. collection. Poster presented at the National Allium Research Conference. 9-10 December 2004, Grand Junction, CO.
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Luby, J.J., Bedford, D.S. and Forsline, P.L. 2004. Winter hardiness in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Malus Core Collection. Acta Hort. 663:605-608.
Owens, C. A.M. Baldo. 2004. Mining the EST database and genomic sequences for SNP discovery in Vitis. P. 148 In Final Abstracts Guide, Plant and Animal Genome XII, San Diego, CA.
Robertson, L.D., A.M. Baldo, S.M. Sheffer, and J.A. Labate. 2004. Sequence-based amplified polymorphisms (SBAPS) are useful for studying genetic diversity of winter squash. P. 153 In Final Abstracts Guide, Plant and Animal Genome XII, San Diego, CA.
Stushnoff, C., A.E. McSay, J.J. Luby, and P.L. Forsline. 2004. Diversity of phenolic antioxidant content and radical scavenging capacity in the apple germplasm collection. XXV1 International Horticultural Congress. Symposium 21 (Plant Genetic Resources: The Fabric of Horticultures Future). Acta Horticulturae 623: 305-312.
Towill, L.E., P.L. Forsline, C. Walters, J. Waddell and J. Laufman. 2004. Cryopreservation of Malus germplasm using a winter vegetative bud method: Results from 1915 accessions. Cryoletters 25:323-334.