Hungary occupies a total area of 93,036 square km on the South-Eastern part of Central Europe in the Carpathian Basin. This area belongs to a secondary diversity centre for a number of Old and New World crops and shows a considerable diversity of ecosystems and natural vegetation.
Her climate is under the influences of Mediterranean, Atlantic and Continental effects, which result in a fluctuating climate relatively well protected against quick changes by the surrounding high mountains (Alps, Charpathian mountains, Dinarids).
Primary agricultural production contributes about 6% to the national GDP, although Agriculture and Food Industry plays a considerably higher role in the Hungarian Economy, representing an approximately 20 % share in the national GDP and in the value of exported commodities both.
Main crops grown in Hungary include wheat, maize, forages, a number of temperate vegetables, fruits, grape, medicinal and aromatic plants. A relatively high proportion of the country used as agricultural land and the forest area is relatively modest (18%).
The Hungarian economy is in a transitional phase from a centrally planned system toward market economy. Privatization is in progress altering considerably the country's ownership structure. In 1994, the distribution of Agricultural land was the following:
private property 2,652,700 ha cooperatives 2,306,100 ha state property 1,163,500 ha Hungarian agriculture has a long tradition and contributes to the world production with an overall 1.5 %, which is higher than its share in the global arable land. In the case of certain commodities the Hungarian production represents an even higher proportion (red pepper - 10%, apple - 4.4% etc.) in the overall world production. Large farms (cooperatives and state farms) performing simplified intensive farming were characteristic to Hungarian Agriculture from 1960 to 1990. Since 1990 dramatic changes have been taking place, including the reduction of average farm size, changes in ownership structure, and considerable decrease in input and overall production (app. 30-35 %).
Hungary is rich in indigenous plant genetic resources. Her territory belongs to a secondary centre of crop diversity, where a number of local types and landraces developed even in relatively recently introduced New World crops as well (green and red peppers, tomato, maize etc.). The Natural Flora is especially rich source of wild fruits, medicinal plants (including diverse chemotaxa), forage grasses and legumes, and some crop wild relatives (Aegilops, Lactuca, Daucus, Secale, Vitis, Prunus, Pyrus etc.).
A great variation of local types of temperate fruits and grapes are still grown in so called "restricted garden areas", and backyards. In the Eastern part of the country, semi-natural fruit forests (walnut, plum) are still exist and maintained in restricted protected areas.
A considerable part of the existing variation has been explored and collected since the late fifties and preserved in collections and gene banks.
In situ conservation activities
A major part of the indigenous species of Agricultural importance is protected by law. Many of these species occur also in nature reserve areas, like national parks, protected areas and landscape reserve districts.
The Institute for Agrobotany developed a backyard multiplication system for the regeneration of Hungarian landraces and local types near their places of origin. The network involves nearly 100 collaborators (farmers) in different parts of the country. Recently, collaboration has started with NGOs (Ormánság Foundation, Galgafarm) on the field of dynamic maintenance of landraces and on the spot selection programme.
Genetic resources activities are supported from an Agricultural Fund under the supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture. The main conditions of obtaining financial support are the following:
- applicants should possess unique germplasm not duplicated in existing germplasm collections, the material should be made freely available,
- a basic set of passport and/or collecting information should be supplied to the national database designated by the Ministry of Agriculture,
- after multiplication of the accessions the applicants should arrange for long-term preservation of the material in a Ministry-designated long-term seed store or in a genebank plantation,
- supported genetic resources activities should be conducted in accordance with international standards (FAO/IBPGR standards for genebanks, IBPGR descriptor lists).
A Technical Advisory Council has been created to set up priorities and decide on technical matters, standardized methodology and provide scientific advise. The Technical Advisory Council is supported by crop committees responsible for specific crop groups (field crops, vegetables, medicinal and aromatic plants, ornamental plants, fruits, grapes, forest trees, and microorganisms). The Seed Act approved and filed in 1996 defined crop genetic resources conservation as centrally funded state responsibility. The regulation of national activities has been revised and completed in accordance to international recommendations (FAO/IPGRI Gene Bank Standards, FAO Global Plan of Action). A Crop Gene Bank Council was established in 1996 to replace the Technical Advisory Council backed up by 8 working groups for different crop categories.
Crop genetic resources activities are coordinated by the Institute for Agrobotany, which Institute also provides Secretariate support for the Crop Gene Bank Council.
The main activities of the Institute include:
- exploration and collection of germplasm of field and vegetable crops with special emphasis on Hungarian local material,
- multiplication and regeneration of germplasm to obtain a sufficient amount of high quality seed for medium and long-term conservation, evaluation and distribution,
- isoclimatic regeneration of Hungarian landraces close to their original places,
- characterization and evaluation of germplasm collections according to internationally accepted descriptor lists,
- documentation of passport and evaluation data of the PGR maintained by the Institute and other Institutes in Hungary,
- medium and long-term conservation of germplasm in cold stores and using meristem cultures in the case of vegetatively propagated crops,
- long-term conservation of Hungarian base collection of seed-propagated crops,
- distribution of germplasm together with relevant information to users in Hungary and worldwide,
- participation in the IPGRI ECP/GR programme and coordination of the Hungarian activities.
The Institute for Agrobotany has developed long term storage facilities for a central base collection for seed propagated plant. The computer hardware facilities have been updated to suit to the development of a national crop genetic resources database. Base collections for vegetatively propagated species are also being developed in existing gene bank plantations.
Both medium and long-term storage facilities are available at the Institute for Agrobotany, where facilities to host the National Base Collection for seed propagated crops has also been developed. Storage of seed samples is done according to FAO/IPGRI Gene Bank Standards (seed moisture content 4-7 %, 0 degree C in Active and -20 degrees C in Base collection stores. The available storage capacity can accomodate up to 100.000 seed samples. Medium term storage facilities are also available in institutions participating in the national crop genetic resources programme, or storage of seed samples is provided as a back up service by the Institute for Agrobotany.
Documentation of collections for Passport information has been completed according to FAO\IPGRI Genebank Standards. A summary of holdings in different germplasm collections is presented as attachements. Evaluation of collections and documentation of evaluated data is in progress. Descriptors have been selected in certain crops for inclusion into the central data base. A part of the Passport information on the field and vegetable crop collection has been made accessable through INTERNET. The Hungarian national programme scientists have been participating in the development of European Central Crop Databases, and the European central databases for Trifolium, Bromus and other perennial forage legumes are hosted and maintained by the Institute for Agrobotany.
Forest genetic resources -Natural and semi-natural forests
As a basic principle, primarily the natural reproduction of forests is considered and preferred in forest regeneration, similarily to most countries having up-to-date forest management system. This approach automatically ensures the maintenance of species diversity, genetic variation within the components of the forest ecosystem and its balance with the local ecological conditions.
In countries where forest management is diversified and developed, in order to fulfill the demand for wood, as well as to support the afforestation of sites where the original ecological conditions have changed to such an extent that native species are not able to find their living conditions any more, there is a need for forest management (wood production) of plantation or quasi-plantation type, too.
In such cases, artificial plantation or direct seed sowing is necessary, that requires the production of propagative material and its delivery from a distance from the target area. Genetic properties and provenance of the propagative material will basically determine the start position of the projected forest and influence the quality and quantity of expected yield for several decades (20 to 120 years depending on the species and purposes of use), forest specialists are to decide on the proper source of propagation material - on locality and parent forest stand level alike.
Guidlines have been developed on the basis of research carried out by forest geneticists and cosidering the experiences of practicing foresters to assist making proper decisions and avoiding any serious mistake in selecting propagative material for plantations planned. It is generally suggested, that the propagation material should be obtained primarily from the same region or super-region, whenever possible, or from other places with ecological conditions similar to the projected area.
There are such provenance districts or specific stands of particular species, however, where the potential productivity of genotypes is higher than that of the local populations nearby the place of the plantation to be established (for example westerhof spruce, sudeten larch, slavonian robur oak, etc). Utilization of such provenances like these with verified advantages and inherited outstanding characteristics should be considered even in larger distances from the original place of occurance.
Inside any provenance district, those stands are selected for seed propagation and collecting which have better than average health condition and growth vigour, and these favourable characteristics are predictibly heritable (selected and earmarked seed producing stands).
It is the responsibility of the State Supervision of Propagation Material within the National Institute of Agricultural Quality Testing (Budapest), that propagation material well adapted to the local environment, durable, and the same time, forming ecosystems of high level of diversity, producing improved volume and good quality of wood and timber and/or contributin to the maintenance and improvement of the advantageous effect of forest plantations on the local environment will be available for Agroforestry.
In the case of forest plantations, the above aims can be achieved by using pure, identified, relatively homogenous subspecies or selected types. In quasi-natural forests or quasi-plantations, the goal can be realized by using healthy, stable, resistant propagation material well adapted to the local ecological conditions and having good qualitative and quantitative characteristics for timber production, originating from carefully chosen mother stands or populations.
Seed production stands in Hungary include:
Quercus robur - Oak 1,686 ha Cerasus avium - Wild cherry 23 ha Quercus petraea - Sessile oak 510 ha Alnus glutinosa - Alder 23 ha Quercus rubra - Northern red oak 35 ha Tilia cordata - Basswood 5 ha Quercus cerris 299 ha Tilia tomentosa - Silver basswood 37 ha Fagus sylvatica - European beech 933 ha Pinus sylvestris - Scots pine 105 ha Carpinus betulus - Hornbean 22 ha Pinus nigra - Austrian pine 116 ha Robinia pseudoacacia - Black locust 348 ha Pinus strobus - Eastern white pine 5 ha Fraxinus excelsior - Ash 64 ha Picea abies - Norway spruce 40 ha F. angustifolia ssp. pannonica 35 ha Larix decidua - European larch 47 ha Juglans nigra - Black walnut 71 ha Abies alba - Fir 27 ha Hungary participates in EUFORGEN. National coordination is the responsibility of the University of Forestry and Timber Industry in Sopron.
Crop Genetic Resources collections are used for different purposes including development of new cultivars, crop research and education at different levels. It is very difficult to monitor the actual utilization of distributed germplasm samples, since the development of culivars may take relatively long time and the breeders not necessarily document their raw material collections or such information is not readily available. Since the establishment of the first cold seed store at Tapioszele in 1973, approximately 80.000 samples have been distributed to users worldwide.
There are several documented cases for the successful utilization of genetic resources samples supplied from genetic resources collections:
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In addition to the utilization in cultivar development, genetic resources collections have been used in Hungary for basic and applied research, which resulted in the development of genetic lines, clones to be considered as raw material for the production of hybrids and cultivars. This type of material is also preserved as genetic resources if justified by the Gene Bank Council.
Hungary participated in the Comecon cooperative programme which was coordinated by the Vavilov Institute. Hungary participates in the FAO Commission and Undertaking, and was one of the supporting country and signitories of the establishment of IPGRI. The Hungarian National Programme participates in IPGRI ECP/GR and EUFORGEN. As an active participant organized several working group meeting and hosts some European Central Data Bases (Trifolum, Bromus, Minor Forage Legumes). Extensive collaboration has been also developed on a bilateral basis with about 600 institutions holding genetic resources collections of crops and crop wild relatives.
Hungary is interested in the further development of international collaboration on the basis of free accessability of genetic resources collection. Some obligation taken by the recipients of the germplasms supplied considered as important conditions such as the the acklowlegment of the source of the material whenever used to produce cultivars or publicatons, feed back of evaluation results and data, and avoiding any restriction put on the material supplied (e.g. direct release and registration, licencing or other form of protection without the written permission from the supplier).
It is belived that the FAO Global Plan of Action will contribute to a great extent to the further development of an effective international collaboration on crop genetic resources for food and agriculture.
