Seedbank

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Seedbanks store seeds as a source for planting in case seed reserves elsewhere should be destroyed. The seeds stored may be various in nature, such as those of food crops or those of rare species, to protect biodiversity. The reasons for storing seeds may be varied also, in the case of food crops many useful plants were developed over centuries and are now no longer used for commercial agricultural production and are becoming rare. Unless recognised as formally named cultivars, varieties, or otherwise such plants are known as landraces. Storing seeds also guards against natural disasters, outbreaks of disease, war, etc.

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Seed dormancy

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Orthodox seeds

These seeds have a natural dormancy feature, which allows for their long term storage with little damage to DNA, provided they are kept in a cool, dry environment. These seeds can remain viable for decades and are easily stored in seedbanks.

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Recalcitrant seeds

These seeds cannot be stored at low humidity and subzero temperature without damaging the germplasm. They must be continuously replanted to replenish seed stocks. Some examples are the seeds of cocoa and rubber.

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Optimal storage conditions

Seeds are dried to a moisture content of less than 6%. The seeds are then stored in freezers at -18°C or below. As seed DNA eventually degrades, the seeds need to be replanted and fresh seeds collected for another round of long term storage.

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Challenges

  • Stored specimens have to be regularly replanted when they begin to lose viability
  • Only a limited number of the world's biodiversity are stored
  • It is impossible to store recalcitrant seeds
  • Only 15% of all seedbanked plants are wild species; the remainder are crops.
  • There is a need for improvement of cataloguing and data management. The documentation should include identity of the plant stored, location of the sampling, number of seeds stored and viability state. Other information, such as farming systems in which the crops were grown, or rotations they formed, should also be available to future farmers.
  • The financial cost of facilities are expensive for third world countries which contain the most biodivisity.
  • Seed banks may be accused of biopiracy
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Alternatives

In-situ conservation of seed producing plant species is another conservation strategy. In-situ conversation involves the creation of National Parks; National Forests; and National Wildlife Refuges as a way of preserving the natural habitat of the targeted seed producing organisms. This also allows the plants to continue to evolve with their environment through natural selection. An arboretum stores trees by planting them at a protected site.

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Seedbanks in the world

There are about 6 millions plants species stored as seeds in about 1,300 genebanks throughout the world as of 2006. This amount represents a small fraction of the world's biodiversity, and many regions of the world have not been bioprospected fully.

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Norway

The Norwegian Seed Bank will be built inside a mountain in a manmade tunnel on the frozen island of Spitsbergen. It will be designed to survive catastrophes such as nuclear war, hurricanes, and world war. It will be operated by the Global Crop Diversity Trust. A tunnel will be created in a sandstone mountain on Spitsbergen, which is part of the Svalbard archipelago, about 966 kilometers (600 miles) from the North Pole. The areas permafrost will keep the vault below the freezing point of water and the seeds will be protected by 1-metre thick walls of steel-reinforced concrete. There will be two airlocks and two blast-proof doors.

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United Kingdom

The Wellcome Trust Millennium Building (WTMB) houses the Millennium Seed Bank Project. It is located at Wakehurst Place in West Sussex. It provides space for the storage of thousands of seed samples in a underground vault.

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Oldest seed

The oldest Carbon-14 dated seed that was germinated into a viable plant was a ~2,000 year old Date Palm seed, recovered from excavations at Herod the Great's palace on Masada in Israel; this Judean date palm seed was germinated in 2005.

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See also

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External links

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