FAQ

Our goal is to fulfill all germplasm requests within two weeks of receiving them, however this is influenced by many factors. While seeds can usually be shipped year-round, germplasm that is shipped in the form of unrooted cuttings, for example Begonia and Pelargonium, may be tropical species which can only be shipped when temperatures are above 50 F. Distributions being shipped outside of the United States may be delayed an additional two or more weeks if material must undergo a phytosanitary inspection by the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS). If you have any questions on whether your order has been processed please e-mail us at opgc@osu.edu.

Germplasm is distributed worldwide.

Germplasm is distributed free of charge in limited quantities for research and educational purposes.

Typical seed quantities are 25 to 50 seeds sent for each accession requested, but this depends on availability. Please keep in mind that some accessions, for example Begonia andPelargonium, are only distributed as unrooted cuttings.

Please refer to the "Germplasm" quick link on the left side of this page, then "Request Germplasm" for more information. In step 1. you will find a link to Accession Area Queries where you can search by taxonomy, accession identifier, repository, and other parameters. You can find this website directly at http://www.ars-grin.gov/npgs/acc/acc_queries.html

An accession is a group of related plant material from a single species which is collected at one time from a specific location. Each accession is an attempt to capture the diversity present in a given population of plants. Accessions are given a unique identifier, an accession number, which is used to maintain associated information in the GRIN database. This is similar to call numbers that libraries use, except instead of books we are able to manage plants.

Germplasm is available in limited quantities for research and educational purposes; germplasm is not available for home gardening use. Because one of our goals is to maintain genetic diversity as a resource for the floriculture industry, many of our accessions are wild or landrace types having great variation. As a result, the plants, flowers, fruits, and seeds that grow from our accessions may not all look alike and may not be ornamental or marketable. Additionally, many of our accessions are not adapted to the United States and may require special handling to flower and produce seed.

Please refer to the "Germplasm" quick link on the left side of this page, then "Request Germplasm".

GRIN is the Germplasm Resources Information Network, a web server that provides information about plants, animals, microbes and invertebrates. Curators and other personnel at all genebanks within the USDA National Plant Germplasm System use GRIN to maintain accession passport data, inventory, characterization, and other information. The public can access GRIN at http://www.ars-grin.gov/ and search for accessions and search for accessions and associated information.