Plant and Crop Databases

Databases have become an integral part of all aspects of biological research, including basic and applied plant biology. The importance of databases continues to increase as the volume of data from direct and indirect genomics approaches expands. What is not always obvious to users of databases is the range of available database resources, their access points, or some basic elements of database querying. This chapter briefly summarizes the history of data access via the Internet and reviews some basic terms and considerations in dealing with plant and crop databases. The reader is directed to some of the major publicly available Internet-accessible relevant databases with summaries of the major focuses of those databases, and several examples are given to illustrate how to access plant genomics data. Finally, an outline is given of some of the issues facing the future of plant and crop databases.