Evolution of the cassava (Manihot esculenta, Euphorbiaceae) in vitro germplasm bank of the Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias de la Universidad Nacional del Nordeste (FCA-UNNE) and the Instituto de Botánica del Nordeste (IBONE, CONICET-UNNE) in pre-pandemic and COVID-19 pandemic times

The normal management of plant germplasm conservation laboratories involves carrying out numerous and diverse activities, which were affected by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). The objective of this publication was to review the evolution of the cassava in vitro germplasm bank at the FCA-UNNE and IBONE (CONICET-UNNE) and to tell about usual management practices and the procedures to preserve living plant material and the personnel's life involved in pre-pandemic and COVID-19 pandemic times. Teachers, researchers, undergraduate and graduate students carried out, for almost 40 years, the in vitro conservation of 56 cassava cultivars from different countries. Before March 2020, the bank management consisted mainly in scientific-technological activities for the conservation of the material and the search for parameters to establish an order of subcultures. Having decreed Social, Preventive and Compulsory Isolation in Argentina, conservation activities continued applying the usual practices by following political-institutional sanitary measures. To face the new sanitary scenarios, methodologies must be adjusted so that they are effective at maintaining viability of the plant material and at prolonging conservation time. © 2022 Instituto de Botanica del Nordeste. All rights reserved.

Evolution of the cassava (Manihot esculenta, Euphorbiaceae) in vitro germplasm bank of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the UNNE and the Institute of Botany of the Northeast (CONICET-UNNE) in pre-pandemic and pandemic times due to COVID-19

The normal management of plant germplasm conservation laboratories involves carrying out numerous and diverse activities, which were affected by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). The objective of this publication was to review the evolution of the cassava in vitro germplasm bank at the FCA-UNNE and IBONE (CONICET-UNNE) and to tell about usual management practices and the procedures to preserve living plant material and the personnel's life involved in pre-pandemic and COVID-19 pandemic times. Teachers, researchers, undergraduate and graduate students carried out, for almost 40 years, the in vitro conservation of 56 cassava cultivars from different countries. Before March 2020, the bank management consisted mainly in scientific-technological activities for the conservation of the material and the search for parameters to establish an order of subcultures. Having decreed Social, Preventive and Compulsory Isolation in Argentina, conservation activities continued applying the usual practices by following political-institutional sanitary measures. To face the new sanitary scenarios, methodologies must be adjusted so that they are effective at maintaining viability of the plant material and at prolonging conservation time.