The International Collection of Microorganisms from Plants (ICMP) is a major international culture collection of live bacteria, fungi, and chromists based in Auckland, New Zealand. The ICMP had its origin in 1952 as the personal collection of plant pathogenic bacteria and

rhizobia Rhizobia are diazotrophic bacteria that fix nitrogen after becoming established inside the root nodules of legumes (Fabaceae). To express genes for nitrogen fixation, rhizobia require a plant host; they cannot independently fix nitrogen. In gene ...

of Dr Douglas W. Dye. It expanded as the culture collection (PDDCC) of Plant Diseases Division, and later Plant Protection Division, of the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). Following the reorganization of science in New Zealand in 1992, the collection was transferred to

Landcare Research Landcare may refer to: *Australian Landcare Council, a now superseded Australian government body *Landcare in Australia Landcare Australia is the name for a community not-for-profit organisation which involves local groups of volunteers repairi ...

, one of eight New Zealand Government-owned "

Crown Research Institutes In New Zealand, Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) are corporatised Crown entities charged with conducting scientific research. Crown Research Institutes date from 1992, with most formed out of parts of the former Department of Scientific and I ...

", as a Nationally Significant Collection and Database. The collection has a strong focus on globally sourced

plant pathogen Plant pathology (also phytopathology) is the scientific study of diseases in plants caused by pathogens (infectious organisms) and environmental conditions (physiological factors). Organisms that cause infectious disease include fungi, oomyc ...

s, and fungi of New Zealand and the South Pacific, voucher cultures validate the presence of many plant diseases recorded in New Zealand. The over 22,000 strains are roughly evenly split between bacteria and fungi/yeasts, including 900

type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * Ty ...

and pathotype cultures. In 1993, preservation using

liquid nitrogen Liquid nitrogen—LN2—is nitrogen in a liquid state at low temperature. Liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of about . It is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquid air. It is a colorless, low viscosity liquid that is wide ...

was introduced for fungal and bacterial strains which had been difficult to maintain by vacuum drying; this has since been used for all new accessions. Printed catalogues of strains were published between 1978 and 1999, but have been replaced by an online database updated daily.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/icmp
ICMP database of strains

Dataset on GBIF
Culture collections Research in New Zealand