Funded by GGI-Gardens Awards Program, in partnership with United States Botanic Garden

Project Completed: 2024

Institution: Centro de Investigación Científica de Yucatán A.C (CICY)

Collections from the Botanical Garden of the GermoLab

Project goal

The mission of the Germolab in Centro de Investigación de Yucatán A.C. (CICY), Mexico, is to conserve, study and reproduce plant germplasm from the Mexican tropics and Mesoamerica. This mission is accomplished through seed research and conservation and ex situ conservation of plants in the botanical garden. Through funding from the GGI-Garden’s Partnership, CICY set the goal of collecting tissue samples of a number of endemic, rare and/or endangered species native to the Yucatán Peninsula.

Key Achievements

The 2023 GGI-Gardens Partnership allowed CICY to connect as a team, with students and colleagues who share similar interests such as the GGBN-associated DNA biorepository in Mexico, and the Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes.

While they faced challenges, such as finding young plants with reproductive structures, or collecting from plants that do not flower annually, CICY successfully made 50 plant collections from 16 families and 32 genera, eight of which were new to GGBN.