Not all the 500 seeds selected produced a SSD line;
as expected few seeds failed to germinate, some
genotypes resulted to be common wheat, and some
plants were destroyed by birds or by severe parasitic
attack, prior they could reproduce, bringing to 452
the number of genotypes. These results are not
unexpected since the germination of materials in the
collection is kept above 85 % (FAO Genebank
Standards 2014; Sect. 4.3.2.) that implies that 48
non germinating seeds in a sample of 500 are well
within the expected. The presence of common wheat
seeds is due to the fact that many of the stored
landraces are in fact admixtures of not only different
genotypes but also different species, especially when
samples were collected in very marginal areas.
Moreover the presence of soft wheat contamination
provides evidence that the seed choice procedure
was completely unintentional.