This document summarizes Pete Cyr's visit to the International Potato Center (CIP) genebank in Lima, Peru in September 2018. The visit aimed to promote clonal support in CIP's GRIN-Global platform, present information flow and quality control processes, discuss CIP's Laboratory Information Management System, and align IT activities between CIP and USDA/ARS. Key topics discussed included the migration of CIP's seed, clonal, and herbarium collections to GRIN-Global, linking the genebank's internal LIMS to GRIN-Global based on collection size and complexity, developing tools for CIP's field and greenhouse collections, and CIP's requirements for future GRIN-Global releases.

1. IT Staff: Jose Bueno (CIP), Pete Cyr
(USDA/ARS), Edwin Rojas (CIP), Carlos
Velasquez (CIP), Oswaldo Chavez (CIP)
Agenda during the week
Good overview of collections - seed,
clonal (in vitro, greenhouse, cryo, field)
and herbarium; and software tools.
• Meet with curators, breeders,
supervisors and IT staff
• Visit laboratories, greenhouse, cold
chambers and the germplasm
distribution office
• Present GRIN-Global (GG) migration
and additional tools developed;
discuss the purpose of LIMS and the
way they are linked to GG platform
• Discuss GG future developments and
more training for developers
Collaboration between
USDA/ARS & CIP in
GRIN-Global platform
and data management
September 2018, Lima, Peru
Purpose of Pete's Cyr visiting CIP
Genebank for one week
• Promote clonal support in GRIN-
Global (GG) platform based on CIP’s
requirements
• Present information flow, quality
control and how information is being
tracked for monitoring
• Discuss the purpose of LIMS and
functionalities (LIMS: Laboratory
Information Management System)
• Contact and meet CIP Genebank
users and IT staff to receive feedback
and opportunities for improvement
• Align IT activities - for example
when creating new GG products like
Wizards or other tools
Organizers
Edwin Rojas (CIP/IT Specialist)
David Ellis (CIP/Genebank Manager)
Noelle Anglin (CIP/Genebank Manager)
In Vitro collection: Pete Cyr (USDA/ARS)
and Sweetpotato supervisor
GRIN-GLOBAL
PLATFORM
Collaboration with partners
and promoting the GG
community
https://www.facebook.com/gringlobal

2. Clonal conservation in greenhouse: Pete
Cyr (USDA/ARS) and Sweetpotato curator
GRIN-Global
migration at CIP and
functionality of the
LIMS
Reported and discussed…
In CIP genebank, the GRIN-Global
platform is being used to allow public
and internal users to request germplasm
in https://cipotato.org/genebankcip/ and
curators to update passport and related
information (morphological descriptors,
trait data and other attributes) at the
accession level.
The CIP LIMS (internal genebank system
which supports the daily management of
inventories) is divided into two groups
depending on what information was
migrated or linked to GG and the LIMS’s
size and complexity.
In viability test and international
descriptors (AOSA)
The GG Wizard for viability testing to
support the international descriptors
described by AOSA in
https://www.analyzeseeds.com/seed-testing-
definitions/ is to be considered for seed
collections at the inventory level.
“Linking internal genebank
systems (LIMS) with GRIN-
Global depends on the size and
complexity of the LIMS”
LIMS tools migrated and linked
At CIP the seed and herbarium are
small/medium size collections and we
have a small DNA-bank which can be
relatively easily migrated to GG.
CIP is in the custodian of one the world’s
largest in vitro collections and one of the
largest clonal plant cryobanks and the
complexity of the LIMS operations for
these in vitro and clonal inventories are
high thus linking to GG is also a priority.
The field and greenhouse clonal
collections at the level of inventory
management are supported by the GG
database and middle tier but needs to
Inside GG Schema vs CIP requirements
develop some mobile tools to facilitate data
capture and maintain updated online
accounting of their inventories - plans are to
link GG with an opensource tool KDSmart
(http://www.kddart.org/kdsmart.html).
CIP requirements for next releases
discussed for GG platform
• Subsets support metadata, adding
[method_id] column not mandatory
(nullable) in [name_group] table
• Enable tracking history of actions for each
item in a germplasm order, creating table
[order_request_item_action] with
columns [order_request_item_action_id],
[order_request_item_id], [action_id],
[cooperator_id], [action_date], [note] and
6 audit columns
• Facilitate integration of GG with modern
software tools, in the middle tier support
RESTful webservices
• Improve integration of GG with
Phytopathology database, adding column
[order_item_number] in table
[inventory_quality_status]

3. Links between CIP Breeding and Genebank database
• Subsets are being generated by breeding program for in trust accessions and breeding materials, these subsets
include traits and morphological information for each environment
• Standardize trait descriptors and their categories between genebank and breeding databases to facilitate
interchange of information using data dictionaries or ontologies
• Pedigree information of breeding materials denotate that ancestral parental are in trust accessions
• When breeding programs release new varieties and introduce for in Vitro conservation related passport and
morphological information with pictures are documented
• International breeding distribution materials are registered, for example Consignee, country, list of materials,
purpose, …
Breeder presenting
information flow and tools