Collecting Landraces of Vegetable Crop Species in the South-West Romania

A collecting mission was carried out in south-west Romania in October 2013 with the aims: (1) to collect autochthonous crop genetic resources which still present in the south-west of Romania; (2) to assess the presence of on farm of plant genetic resources; (3) to determine the species and the amount of genetic diversity still cultivated and (4) to obtain information from germplasm owners to be used to evaluate the feasibility of an on farm conservation program. Out of 24 explored towns, in 8, landraces were grown and in all, instances seeds could be obtained. Fifty-three accessions from different crop species were collected in 17 sites, belonging to 10 botanical families, of which solanaceae was the most represented (32%), followed by fabaceae (17%), cucurbitaceae (11%) and alliaceae and brassicaceae (9%). As expected, vegetable crops were the most collected, reaching a value as 58.5%, spices 20.8%, while pulses 15.1% and cereals 5.7% of the total. This collecting mission showed that in internal areas of Romania, germplasm of old landraces of many vegetable and crop species still survive, and indicated the urgency to continue also in other agricultural districts of Romania.