A number of specialized data sets are incorporated into GRIN TAXONOMY, most of these arising from publications of National Germplasm Resources Laboratory (formerly Systematic Botany and Mycology Laboratory) botanists. One example is the family and generic data in USDA Technical Bulletin 1796 which was already discussed. Also included are the scientific names endorsed by seed-testing associations such as Association of Official Seed Analysts (AOSA) and International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) from the publications AOSA Rules for Testing Seeds Volume 3. Uniform classification of weed and crop seeds (Meyer and Wiersema, 2014) and ISTA List of Stabilized Plant Names (ed. 6, Wiersema et al., 2013), for which the nomenclature is being verified in GRIN. The AOSA data set includes the federal noxious weeds controlled by the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and the state noxious-weed seeds regulated by the Federal Seed Act. A separate query page has been set up to search all federal and state noxious weeds, both aquatic and terrestrial, and state noxious-weed seeds in GRIN with links to federal and state regulatory resources.

Another publication linked to GRIN TAXONOMY is the latest revision of former USDA Agricultural Handbook 505, A checklist of names for 3,000 vascular plants of economic importance (Terrell, 1986b). This new revision, which treats over 12,200 economically important vascular plants, was published in 2013 by CRC Press as a second edition of a 1999 work under the title World Economic Plants: a standard reference. Data from this publication may be queried on the web.

Another data set incorporated into GRIN relates to threatened and endangered plants. Among these are the plants listed in Appendices I, II, and III of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Also included are the federal list of threatened and endangered plants maintained by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (US-FWS), Department of the Interior and the list of rare plants maintained by the Center for Plant Conservation (CPC).

A data set on crop wild relatives (CWR) was recently added to GRIN TAXONOMY in 2014. Currently, 4.826 CWR have been classified according to their hybridization potential with 224 major and minor crops. A query page exists to search these data in various ways. A fuller discussion of this project is available here.

A final specialized data set in GRIN provides information on all published rhizobial nodulation reports for genera and species. These data, concerning mainly legumes, can also be queried on the web.