Plant genetic resources (PGRs) hold immense potential for crop improvement, offering valuable genetic diversity to address current and future production constraints. Modern genomics now allows the genetic potential of PGRs to be unlocked even faster. To fully harness the potential of PGR genomic data, pangenomes are needed to capture the full range of genetic variations across a plant species. There is also the need for digital tools to efficiently manage and leverage this wealth of information.

The Australian Grains Genebank (AGG) Strategic Partnership between Agriculture Victoria and the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) is transforming the AGG from a traditional seedbank into a future-oriented bio-digital resource center. This includes genetically characterizing its PGR collection, of which about 50 000 are wheat. Digital tools to rapidly connect PGR data to existing and new crop pangenomes are also being developed to facilitate the utilization of PGRs in research and breeding.

Here, we demonstrate how DNA fingerprints for PGRs can be cross-referenced with chromosome segments from pangenomes using Brioche and Pretzel. Brioche efficiently maps genomic markers to reference genome assemblies, while Pretzel – an interactive webtool for navigating multi-dimensional datasets from the scale of the nucleotide to pangenome – allows these mappings to be visualized, crucially linking the results to genebank genomics data.

Our approach empowers researchers and breeders to explore the relationship between PGR genetic variation and agronomically important traits. By bridging the gap between genotypic data and pangenome representations, Brioche and Pretzel accelerate the translation of PGR genomic characterization data into tangible and useful information for research and breeding.