It draws its representation from Canadian federal and provincial government agencies, universities, industry, scientific societies, and non-government organizations. Specifically the committee discusses and advises on the activities of the national program in plant genetic resources, makes recommendations to CARC on issues relating to plant and microbial genetic resources, and participates in the formulation of national plant and microbial genetic resource policy and its relationship to international programs. Canada uses a computerized database management system to assist in handling the massive amounts of data associated with the genetic resources. The data is divided into three basic categories, namely passport, evaluation, and stock management. Researchers can learn about specific characteristics for each accession in the collection.
All Nodes interact with the database regularly, entering data, conducting searches and so on.
Seed requests can also be made through the database. What the collections contain Over 110,000 seed samples are preserved at the Seed Genebank in Saskatoon. On Canada s behalf, it has accepted formal responsibility for principal world base collections of barley and oat and duplicate world base collections of pearl millet and oilseed and crucifiers. The seed collection includes foreign and indigenous plants, wild and weedy relatives of crop species, cultivars and inbred parental lines, elite breeding lines, and some rare and threatened species and genetic stocks. Genetic stocks include induced and natural mutations, cytological stocks of genetic oddities and variations on normal chromosomes, marker genes, polyploids, and pest-resistant stocks.