University of Hawaiʻi (Lyon Arboretum)

The Lyon Arboretum-Hawaiian Rare Plant Program (HRPP), in collaboration with Laukahi: The Hawai'i Plant Conservation Network (HPCN) will conduct a comprehensive survey and develop action plans for the in vitro germplasm collection of native Hawaiian species housed at the Micropropagation Laboratory. HRPP and its partners are moving towards a more sophisticated standardized format of data collection now being adopted by HPCN. This new format identifies the provenance of the collection, utilizing a pre-set area and individual plant reference code to readily identify plant founders. Code implementation will validate the value of breeding strategies to land managers. A survey of the laboratory's existing germplasm inventory will be conducted to identify collections with inaccurate or insufficient data, noting the general health of the cultures and assessing each collection for its conservation value. This will provide information to build action plans that can be used by land and species managers to develop collection and restoration strategies in the future.