Coconut Palms from Papua New Guinea: What shoud remain from a disappearing genebank?

By R. Bourdeix, XXXX and XXXX.
In construction

What should remain from a diseapearing genebank?

Varieties that were conserved and transfered to other coconut genebanks
Varieties that were conserved and transfered to other stakeholders (such as local farmers
Data conserved in the Coconut Genetic Resources database
Standardized descriptions of coconut varieties in COGENT catalogue
Other publications

Can we apply these to the Madang International Coconut Genebank?

1. Varieties that were conserved and transfered to other coconut genebanks

The varieties sent abroad before and after 2007 must be distinguished, as is the date when the Papuan Coconut Genebank took an international status. In SRS, CDP data indicate that most of the palms started to produce in 2002 or 2003. So exportations from Papua New Guinea are not from Stewart Research station in sent before 2003.

Here is a list of accessions from Papua Niu Guinea conserved in the 28 COGENT coconut genebanks. Except missing information, this list indicates that all the germplasm was sent from Papua New Guinea before the genebank had its International Status. Germplasm was sent by PNG to Côte d'Ivoire (SMD), Vanuatu (VTT), Jamaica (CIB) and Solomon(YSI). The accessions with name 'New Guinea" that are available in India (IND) need to be checked. Then Côte d'Ivoire sent the PNG germplasm to many other countries:.

See the genebank codes here if needed.

Gene bank Code	Accession Number	International name	Interna- tional abbre -viation	Date of planting	N	Date of last counting	U	P A S	C H A R
CIB	CIB KKT R1	Karkar Tall	KKT		41		14	59	22
CIB	CIB MVT R1	Markham Valley Tall	MVT		10		12	20	1
IND	IND011	New Guinea Tall	NGAT	1940	41		1	27	57
YSI	YSI MVT	Markham Valley Tall	MVT	1960	32	1974	12	35	6
CIB	CIB KKT	Karkar Tall	KKT	1964	13		14	45	2
CIB	CIB MVT	Markham Valley Tall	MVT	1964	6		12	22	2
IND	IND084	Karkar Tall	KKT	1972	14		14	31	50
IND	IND085	Markham Valley Tall	MVT	1972	12		12	33	52
SMD	SMD GNG1	Karkar Tall	KKT	1975	59	2007	14	53	56
PHL	ZRC FT3	Karkar Tall	KKT	1977	123	2012	14	57	63
IPRI	IPR-PKT013	Karkar Tall	KKT	1978	0	2012	14	39	6
IPRI	IPR-PKT014	Markham Valley Tall	MVT	1978	0	2012	12	39	6
PHL	ZRC FT2	Gazelle Peninsula Tall	GPT	1979	134	2012	8	57	65
PHL	ZRC FT4	Markham Valley Tall	MVT	1979	124	2012	12	57	65
SMD	SMD NBN	Madang Brown Dwarf	MBD	1979	71	2007	10	59	59
DOAS	UDARS 15	Karkar Tall	KKT	1983	19	1999	14	25	24
DOAS	UDARS 16	Markham Valley Tall	MVT	1983	14	1999	12	27	24
IND	IND118	Gazelle Peninsula Tall	GPT	1983	53		8	61	12
IND	IND117	New Guinea Kavieng Tall	KVT	1983	27		1	63	12
IND	IND114	New Guinea Kiriwana Tall	KRT	1983	37		1	59	12
IND	IND116	New Guinea Orange Dwarf	NGOD	1983	31		1	63	12
VT	VT NBN	Madang Brown Dwarf	MBD	1983		2000	10	59	46
SMD	SMD GNG4	Gazelle Peninsula Tall	GPT	1984	148	2007	8	51	41
SMD	SMD GNG1 B	Karkar Tall	KKT	1984	40	2007	14	55	32
SMD	SMD GNG3	Markham Valley Tall	MVT	1984	85	2007	12	51	40
VT	VT GGZ	Gazelle Peninsula Tall	GPT	1985		2000	8	67	28
VT	VT GKK	Karkar Tall	KKT	1985		2000	14	63	19
IND	IND085 R1	Markham Valley Tall	MVT	1989	12		12	76	7
NCDP	NCDP-T16	Karkar Tall	KKT	1989	180		14	65	7
NCDP	NCDP-D11	Madang Brown Dwarf	MBD	1990	150		10	71	8
CHRC	CHRC026	Madang Brown Dwarf	MBD	1991	11	1999	10	84	3
PHL	PPC GPT A07	Gazelle Peninsula Tall	GPT	1993	46	1998	8	47	7
PHL	PPC KKT A02	Karkar Tall	KKT	1993	44	1998	14	45	7
PHL	PPC MVT A06	Markham Valley Tall	MVT	1993	43	1998	12	47	7
VT	VT NBN R1	Madang Brown Dwarf	MBD	1994	87	2000	10	69	12
CHRC	CHRC026 R1	Madang Brown Dwarf	MBD	1995	21	1999	10	88	3
VT	VT GKK R1	Karkar Tall	KKT	1999	105	2000	14	92	14
VT	VT GGZ R1	Gazelle Peninsula Tall	GPT	2000	96		8	33	6
CRI	CRI GPT	Gazelle Peninsula Tall	GPT	2006	8	2007	8	84	90
CRI	CRI MBD	Madang Brown Dwarf	MBD	2006	2	2007	10	90	90
CRI	CRI MVT	Markham Valley Tall	MVT	2006	16	2007	12	88	90
SMD	SMD GNG4 R1	Gazelle Peninsula Tall	GPT	2008	157	2012	8	94	91
SMD	SMD GNG1 R1	Karkar Tall	KKT	2008	145	2012	14	98	92
SMD	SMD NBN R1	Madang Brown Dwarf	MBD	2008	133	2012	10	92	92

2. Varieties that were conserved and transfered to other stakeholders (such as other national institutions, or local farmers

Il there any record of the varieties that were released to local farmers? This shoud include hybrids, Dwarf and Tall varieties.

3. Data conserved in the Coconut Genetic Resources database

Are all accessions registered in the CGRD Database?

What is the completion level of the passport data?

What is the completion level of the Characterization data?

What is the completion level of the Characterization/Yield data?

4. Standardized descriptions of coconut varieties in COGENT catalogue

Here under is a list of varieties from PNG that are described in the COGENT catalogue of conserved germplasm.

Name and abbreviation	Page	Authors	Origin of pictures and description
Karkar Tall (KKT)	184-185	Ratnambal MJ, Niral V, Krishnan M	India
Madang Brown Dwarf (MBD) in Côte d’Ivoire	186-187	Bourdeix R, Ovasuru T, Konan JL	Côte d’Ivoire
Madang Brown Dwarf (MBD) in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu	188-189	Ovasuru T, Faure M, Bourdeix R, Labouisse JP	PNG, Vanuatu
Markham Valley Tall (MVT) in Côte d’Ivoire	190-191	Bourdeix R, Ovasuru T, Labouisse JP, Konan J.L.	Côte d’Ivoire
Markham Valley Tall (MVT) in India	192-193	Ratnambal MJ, Niral V, Krishnan M	India

Only five varietal descriptions of PNG germplasm are presently included in the COGENT Catalogue of Coconut conserved Germplasm. They are : KarKar Tall, described from India genebank ; Madang Brow Dwarf, described from Côte d’Ivoire and Vanuatu, with one picture from PNG ; Markham Valley Tall, described from Côte d’Ivoire and India. Only 3 varieties are described, with two of them described in distinct two locations.

In February 2003, under a COGENT contract, Jean Pierre Labouisse from CIRAD conducted a scientific visit to train local researchers (Mathias Faure was the most concerned) to the making off standardized descriptions of coconut varieties using COGENT Guidelines. After that PNG researchers were supposed to fisnish the work, consisting on remaining pictures and descriptive texts, but COGENT never received this input.

Some of the pictures were numerised and are still available. Some other pictures were let as negative films conserved in Bioversity office in Malaysia when Dr Pons Batugal left COGENT coordination. All these negative films from more than 12 countries, have unfortunately been lost.

Other publications: see the reference section.

Publication about evaluation and characterisation of germplasm and hybrids are missing in the list

Here are some of the 53 pictures of PNG coconut germplasm conserved by Jean Pierre Labouisse and sent back to PNG researchers on September 2019. These pictures need to be treated under photoshop before beeing included in a catalogue.