The International Collection of Microorganisms from Plants (ICMP) is New Zealand’s national culture collection of living Bacteria, Fungi, and Chromists. The collection and associated databases considered ‘Nationally Significant’ by the government, and in part publicly funded.
The ICMP holds 20,000 cultures predominantly from plant, soil, and water in the natural environment, as well as important reference and type cultures of the world’s plant pathogenic fungi and bacteria.
All cultures are databased and available online at https://SCD.LandcareResearch.co.nz cultures are available for a fee to cover retrieval costs. New accessions into the collection are welcome, and recommended when publishing papers on microbes to provide a stable permanent resource for future researchers.
The cultures are preserved under liquid nitrogen or in freeze dried ampoules. The ICMP containment and transitional facility conforms to enhanced PC2 Containment criteria, with generic permits to import quarantine and unwanted organisms into New Zealand.