IRRI has maintained a collection of rice genetic resources since 1962. The collection comprises more than 107,000 accessions, mostly landrace or breeding materials of O. sativa, O. glaberrima, and wild species, and representative species from 8 genera in the tribe Oryzeae (Table 1-3).
The genebank has been open since 1977, and underwent a major renovation in 1993 and 1994, with the addition of a seed drying room at 15°C and 15% RH. It has the following facilities:
an Active Collection for medium-term storage (20-40 years) stored at +2 °C.
a Base Collection for long-term (50 - >100 years) conservation at –20 °C.
two screenhouses with a combined area of >4,000 m². One is used for the cultivation of low viability or low seed stock accessions of cultivated rice. The other is used exclusively for the cultivation of the wild rices, in pots or special propagation beds.
a seed testing and germplasm characterization laboratory.
a data management laboratory, with four workstations, equipped with powerful Pentium microcomputers and several servers dedicated to GRC databases/applications and office files. These computers are connected to the IRRI local area network.
a conservation support laboratory, with facilities for cytogenetical study of conserved germplasm; and tissue culture for embryo rescue and propagation of low viability accessions.
a molecular biology laboratory for the study of genetic diversity using isozymes, RAPD, AFLP, microsatellites, and DArT.
access to >10 ha of field space each cropping season on the IRRI Central Research Farm, Upland Site a protected zone of the experimental station, for the multiplication and rejuvenation of germplasm, and also field characterization.
In 1983, the genebank was named the International Rice Germplasm Center (IRGC). In 1995, it changed its name to the International Rice Genebank. The acronym IRGC now stands for International Rice Genebank Collection.
In addition, more than 10,000 incoming samples are to be registered.