Repatriation of lost old grass varieties to the germplasm collection of the Czech Republic

In former Czechoslovakia, grass breeding was located in the three distinct regions of Southern Bohemia and Northern Moravia during the 1920's; and later in Slovakia in the 1940's. This resulted in the development of 45 cultivars of 17 grass species which originated from local ecotypes and were named after the place of their breeding (e.g. Táborský, Větrovský, Rožnovský, and Levočský). Most of these historical cultivars were not preserved in any national germplasm collection, and the number of missing accessions amounted to 27 of the 34 deleted varieties. Using the findings about unpreserved materials of Czechoslovak origin in the European Central Crop Databases, as well as the EURISCO web catalogue, it was possible to repatriate 7 historical cultivars (Arrhenatherum elatius Větrovský, Festuca pratensis Větrovská, Festuca rubra Rožnovská, Lolium perenne Táborský, Phleum pratense Větrovský, Poa nemoralis Rožnovská, and Poa pratensis Levočská) from the gene banks of the neighbouring European countries. The accessions were regenerated, and their seed has been stored ex situ in the Gene Bank of the Crop Research Institute in Prague.