WCR/CATIE Core Collection

A core collection is a carefully selected group of genetic resources that represents the full genetic diversity of a larger collection. The WCR/CATIE Core Collection is a set of 97 coffee plants originating from CATIE's coffee germplasm bank of over 1,000 coffees. These 97 contain the 100 most genetically diverse individuals. The WCR/CATIE Core Collection allows genetic resource conservators to preserve and utilize a representative set of diverse coffee plants more efficiently. It helps save time, space, and resources while still preserving the diversity needed for crop improvement.

The WCR/CATIE Core Collection was established in 2016 at three research sites in Central America: one in El Salvador and two in Costa Rica. At the end of 2017, the Core Collection, located at CATIE (Turrialba), was characterized for the first time:

Access Core Collection data in Genesys

About the WCR/CATIE Core Collection

Nearly 1,000 unique accessions from the CATIE coffee germplasm collection, which contains the overwhelming bulk of genetic diversity available today outside of the Ethiopian forests, were genotyped using whole-genome DNA re-sequencing to measure genetic diversity/similarity.

We looked at 809 C. arabica, 58 C. canephora (robusta), 17 “Arabustas,” 10 C.eugenioides, 12 C. sessiliflora, and 7 each of C. pseudozanguebariae, C. anthonii, and C. brevipes samples.

In all, 249 billion base pairs in 947 DNA samples were sequenced to identify the 97 most genetically diverse individuals.