Abstract
The Latin American Maize Project (LAMP) provided the information necessary to efficiently select germplasm bank accessions for enhancement. In this regard, LAMP served as the first step to sharing promising maize materials from the germplasm banks with breeders. GEM completes the process by returning to the germplasm bank enhanced materials developed from the accessions, which can be directly used in breeding programmes. For any of the LAMP accessions to be useful in maize improvement, some mechanism had to be established to enhance them so they could enter commercial maize breeding channels. The competitive nature of the seed industry made it unlikely that any one company would support an enhancement effort. Public breeders are poorly funded, and there are few if any grant sources for germplasm enhancement, so it was unlikely that public breeders could find the financial resources to support an enhancement effort. This chapter reviews: USA maize diversity prior to GEM; objectives and goals of GEM; methods and strategy used in GEM (development and organization of the project; starting materials used for breeding; breeding activities and results to date); social and economic impact of LAMP and GEM (overall utility to breeders; opportunities and constraints - demonstrating the importance of genetic resources; opportunities and constraints - use of biotechnology). Future concepts and challenges are also mentioned.