The objective of this work was to make available information concerning the vegetable germplasm bank at the Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV), Brazil, and the assessment carried out over the last four decades, as registered by the germplasm bank of vegetables (BGH). In 1986, the UFV created the BGH with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation to recover native and non-native species; to register and maintain germplasm exchange with other world regions and to evaluate their potential for the various Brazilian climate conditions. The BGH genetic resources have been assessed for 23 years. This intermittent activity was initiated in 1964, covering six years of assessment during the 1960s and the 1970s plus seven and four years during the 1980s and the 1990s, respectively. Maximum assessment was carried out in 1967 with 1.480 accesses. Today, UFV's BGH owns 6.559 accesses comprising 25 families and 106 species. The most participating families are: solanaceae (44.21%); leguminosae (16.83%); cucurbitaceae (15.70%) and the remaining families (23.26%). Data in this work show that the concern with assessing vegetable genetic resources aiming to recover the variability of major populations is previous to the creation of the IPGRI in the 1970s. A systematic data registration shows an expressive number of accesses and species diversity. This is an advantage since the germplasm of cultivated species will remain the most used source for variety development. Genetic vulnerability can only be avoided through variability, which is dependent on genetic resources.
germplasm bank; collection; vegetables; genetic resources
