Chapter 34. David H. Timothy. 1972. Plant germ plasm resources and utilization [Plus a discussion session]. Pages 631-666.

Keywords: agricultural germplasm banks, conservation of plant germplasm, seed banks are needed to guard genetic diversity of food crops, plant breeding, from the Neolithic man to the Irish famine, man has used 3,000 plant species for food and cultivated at least 150 species to the extent that they have entered into commerce, about 15 species essentially feed the world: rice, wheat, maize, sorghum, barley, sugar beets and sugar cane, potato, sweet potato, cassava, common bean, soybean, peanut, coconut, banana, origin of agriculture, plant improvement, variability, and disappearing germplasm, leaves of grass, the wild seed, forages for feed, Norman Borlaug and the semi-dwarfs, CIMMYT in Mexico, diseases and insect pests, the regional approach, Acala cotton and Cuba maize, germplasm maintenance, appearance, uniformity and diversity