News from: Planting Materials Network, Pacific - Solomon Islands

Taro Field Genebanks established in Solomon Islands

19 January 2002

The Solomon Islands Planting Material Network has established four field genebanks in four provinces in Solomon Islands where 843 colocasia taro cultivars are being maintained. The work is part of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community Taro Genetic Resource Conservation Project.

Planting Material Network Members have collected 843 cultivars of taro in four provinces in Solomon Islands. The taro has been planted at four field genebanks - two maintained by farmer groups and two by the local department of agriculture. The collections represent a snapshot of the genetic diversity of taro in Solomon Islands. Many of the taros are now close to being ready to harvest in the next few months.

This month Grahame Jackson from the Taro Genetic Resource Conservation project visited the field genebanks to redescribe the taro using IPGRI descriptors. Some of the accessions have been lost in each collection mostly due to delays in the transport of suckers to the field genebanks during the colletion carried out by PMN members. In Guadalcanal the whole collection was lost due to unexpected dry weather and problems with the maintenaince of the collection by a local youth training centre.

Grahame also selected a 'core' collection - about 10-20% of the collection. This will be stored in the Regional Gene Centre at SPC in Suva, Fiji. There the collection will be held on behalf of the Solomon Islands people for future use in the event that it is lost in the field. The core is believed to represent 70-80% of the genetic diversity in Solomon Islands.

Planting Material Network members are now planning diversity fairs that will be held in the four provinces to promote on farm conservation of taro. The taro in the field genebanks will be distributed back to farmers and community diversity registers established to monitor how farmers maintain the taro over time.

Taro is declining in use and many cultivars are being lost due to a combination of declining soil fertility, pests such as the taro beetle and a number of virus' that are crippling taro production. The SPC project is working to breed virus resistant cultivars to assist farmers. PMN is working with SPC to ensure that the distribution of new cultivars does not encourage further genetic erosion in the field.

For further information

Classification

Subject  Local Seed Networks
Regional relation  Pacific - Solomon Islands
Audience  General Interest - NGOs - Friends of Seed Savers