Genebank details

The Australian Grains Genebank (AGG) is a bio-digital resource centre with the national mandate for the acquisition, conservation, maintenance and distribution of grain crop genetic resources to support the Australian grains industry. The AGG is Australia's first national grains crop genetic resource centre, and was formed in 2014 as a partnership between Agriculture Victoria and the Grains Research and Development Corporation. The AGG incorporates collections previously held in the Australian Temperate Field Crops Collection, the Australian Tropical Crops Collection and the Australian Winter Cereals Collection.

The AGG is custodian of over 185,000 accessions of temperate and tropical crops including cultivated varieties, landraces, progenitors, breeding lines and wild relatives of cereals, legumes, oilseeds and other minor crops. Winter cereals comprise around 52% of the collection, followed by temperate pulses (c. 25%), tropical crops (c. 19%), temperate oilseeds (c. 4%) and minor crops making up the rest. Crop wild relatives represent around 5.5% of the total collection, with the AGG actively collecting Australia's unique native species related to agricultural crops to ensure their ex-situ conservation into the future.

Since it started, the AGG has distributed over 202,000 germplasm samples to research, pre-breeding and breeding programs across Australia and overseas, underpinning the development of more resilient, productive grain crop varieites for Australian and international growing conditions.

The AGG is located at the Grains Innovation Precinct in Horsham, Victoria, Australia. For queries or germplasm requests, please contact: agg.info@agriculture.vic.gov.au.