Historical and Traditional Notes on Collecting Crop Genetic Resources in Central Part of Calabria Region

A collecting expedition has been carried out in the central part of Calabria region, south Italy; it has been concentrated on Reventino, Serre, Occitan and Albanian areas that were covered in certain coinciding sites in the past. In totality, 50 accessions belonging to 14 taxa were collected from 8 collecting sites, representing mainly highly variable old landraces of vegetables and cereals and, especially, of pulses; most of them that appear severely threatened by genetic erosion are still cultivated, at certain level, by old farmers and directly used by their families. A comparison of the results of the previous missions that have been carried out in Calabria region that preserve valuable crop genetic resources on farm shows the large degree of genetic erosion for all crops collected. The results stressed the need to conserve a considerable amount of material endangered and the necessity of our ongoing care for their preservation either on farms or ex situ in genebanks. The complementarity of both conservation methods is needed.