作物种质资源学科是20世纪发展起来的，瓦维洛夫的世界考察收集及其材料的表型多样性地理分布研究，奠定了作物种质资源学科的基础。自1958年美国建成世界第一座现代化种子库后，至今全世界的种质库已达1300多个，保存种质600×10⁴份（另一文献为2500×10⁴份）。现在的种质库分为长期、中期和短期三种，并在研究液态氮保存。无性繁殖作物采用种质圃或试管苗保存。由于育种工作对种质资源要求日益迫切，以及分子生物技术的发展，使作物种质资源研究进入了以评价鉴定为主的时代。应用分子遗传图谱不仅能鉴定质量性状，而且能发掘数量性状基因。中国原产的作物种质资源得到了较好的收集，1986年建成国家作物种质库(长期库），其中已存人各种作物的种质资源31×10⁴份。并建有西宁复份保存库，22个中期库，30个国家种质圃和2个试管苗库。对保存的材料大多数进行了农艺性状、抗病虫害、抗逆性和品质初步鉴定，并建成了中国作物种质资源信息系统。随着生物技术的加速发展，应用高新技术千方百计在种质资源中发掘新基因将是21世纪作物种质资源学科发展的热点。因此，要妥善保护现有种质资源，不再使任何基因流失；并从国外引进新作物、新基因，以促进农业改制和作物生产的发展；大力从地方品种中，特别是野生种中发掘新基因，促进农业持续发展。

Crop germplasm is a discipline established in the 20th century, based on worldwide exploration and collection and the research on the phenotypes, and geographic distributions of diversities by Vavilov. The first modern crop gene bank was built in USA in 1958. Since then, more than 1300 crop gene banks have been built in the world. More than 6 million accessions (approximately 25 million accessions according to another document) are conserved in these gene banks. Gene banks can be Classified as three types： long-term, middle-term and short-term. Conservation in liquid nitrogen is an efficient method. Germplasms of vegetative crops are kept either in vitro or in field gene banks. Because of the more and more urgent need of crop germplasm in breeding and development of biotechnology, crop germplasm sciences enter a period which focuses on evaluation and identification of the collections. Molecular genetic mapes can not only be used to identify qualitative traits, but also be utilized to discover quantitative trait genes. The indigenous crop germplasm resources in China have been well collected. A national crop gene bank (a long-term bank) was built in 1986, in which more than 310 000 collections of all kinds of crops are conserved, and a duplicate long-term crop gene bank with the same collections was also built in Xining, Qighai Province. In addition, 22 middle-term banks (8 in the institutes of CAAS, and 14 in provincial academies of agricultural sciences), 30 national field gene banks and 2 in vitro gene banks have been established. Most of the collections have been preliminarily evaluated on agronomic traits, disease and pest resistance, stress tolerance and quality. All of the data have been documented in computers, and an information system about Chinese crop germplasm has been developed. With the development of biotechnology in the 21st century, it will be a hot point to discover new genes from germplasm resources via application of new technology. So it is essential to keep all these accessions well and prevent any gene from loss, and to introduce new crops and genes from abroad to promote the variety improvement and enhancement of agriculture system. I-dentification of new genes from land races, especially from wild species to enhance the sustainable development of agriculture will be the centre of germplasm work.