Several categories of stocks have been discontinued, and others have been added. The exotics and the popcorns have been discontinued because they represent germplasm lines (as opposed to genetic stocks) that are better maintained by the North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station in Ames, Iowa. The Stock Center's collection of these lines has been sent to Ames, and will be supplied by them (contact Mark Millard, Maize Curator, USDA-ARS-NCRPIS, Agronomy Building, Iowa State University, Ames IA, 50011, 515-292-6502 [voice], 515-292-6690 [fax], [email protected] [internet]).

The Black Mexican Sweet Corn lines with and without B chromosomes will continue to be listed, maintained and supplied by us as B chromosome lines. A new category of stock called "Toolkits" has been created to include stocks that do not represent a particular linkage group, but which are useful in genetic research. Examples include the lines of Chuck Armstrong that produce good type II embryogenic callus cultures and Bryan Kindiger's ig1 stocks that are useful in producing inbred lines in different cytoplasmic backgrounds.

3,089 seed samples were supplied in response to 314 requests during 1994. Of these, a total of 63 requests were received from 23 foreign countries. 331 more samples were distributed this year than last year, making a new annual record. Approximately half of our requests were received by e-mail.

While the summer weather was dryer than optimal, supplemental irrigation helped us achieve a fantastic harvest. About 5 acres of nursery were grown. Good increases were obtained of numerous stocks that were in low supply and of stocks from the collections of Marcus Rhoades and Donald Robertson. A thorough inventory was made of the stock drawers, and mutants previously thought to be lost (e. g. gl13, v13, oro2, frz1, l3, and v7) were recovered. A systematic increase was made of old translocation stocks, and new wx1-linked translocations from several sources were added to the Stock Center collection. Special plantings were made of several categories of stocks, including massive plantings of hundreds of unplaced mutants. Some tests for allelism were made within groups, and pedigree errors were corrected. We had a very successful winter nursery at the USDA facility in Puerto Rico last year and have recently sent seeds there again for this year's winter nursery.

Greenhouse sandbench plantings were made to determine or confirm genotypes relative to seedling traits. Field plantings were also grown to develop pedigree information with regard to mature plant traits. Such information is used to determine or verify genetic constitutions of sources used to perpetuate stocks and supply seed requests. We are hoping that funds for new greenhouse space become available in the near future, so that mutant stocks that do not do well under field conditions can be grown and seedling tests can be done more efficiently.

We have obtained stocks from the collection of Barbara McClintock and are in the process of obtaining stocks from the collections of Charles Burnham and Walton Galinat. We recently received a collection of wx1-, y1-, o2-, or su1-linked translocations from William Findley. We also recently received a collection of transposed Ac stocks, that will be useful in transposon tagging, from Hugo Dooner (see his report elsewhere in this issue of MNL). A large collection of cytoplasmic stocks in different inbred backgrounds was received from Margaret Smith of Cornell. We are entering data on the newly acquired stocks of McClintock, Rhoades, and Robertson into the computer, and expect to have this information available electronically in the near future. Because of the size of these collections, it is not possible for us to list the individual stocks in their entirety in the Maize Newsletter, although we will supply information on our holdings on request.

Accepting stock requests via e-mail (our internet address is [email protected]) has been very successful (approximately half of our requests were received that way in 1994). We recently set up a WWW server that now allows us to receive requests over the 'Web' from users with software such as NCSA Mosaic or Netscape (our home page URL is http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/maize). We are continuing to enter data into our internal database. In addition to information about our stocks, we also have reprint collections of M.M. Rhoades, G.F. Sprague and E.G. Anderson. Information about these reprints is accessible from our growing database.

We have been continuing our collaboration with Ed Coe's efforts in building a Maize Genome database. This is part of the Plant Genome Database (PGD) program centered at the National Agricultural Library. Information about our stocks is presently in MaizeDB (and therefore also with the PGD at NAL and also with GRIN) allowing users access to information about available maize genetic stocks. Data on available maize genetic stocks has also been entered into GRIN. A list of available stocks will continue to be published annually as part of the Maize Genetics Cooperation € Newsletter.

Our hopes are that a user will be able to find a stock of interest on an on-line database and directly request stocks from within the database program. The request will be transmitted electronically through the internet to us. This has now been accomplished in 'WWW' format.

Marty Sachs       Philip Stinard         Janet Day                      Earl Patterson
Director              Curator                   Research Specialist       Co-director

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