By Suzanne Waring
When I was planting this year’s garden, I found some five-year-old squash seeds and eight-year-old pole bean seeds in my stash. I planted both and waited for them to germinate. This little experiment made me curious enough to read up on seed banks and their procedures and difficulties in keeping seed dormant but viable.
Thirteen hundred seed banks in the world operate with different purposes. Many of them serve the communities and farmers in their country by providing seeds that are suited to the conditions of the area. Another type of seed bank works with supporting large-scale agricultural production and commercial farming.
The third type of seed bank is considered more of a “doom’s day vault” than the other two types. This seed bank supports worldwide genetic diversity of wild as well as domesticated plant species that have been collected and preserved, although parts of the world have yet to be explored for the purpose of collecting unique plants and their seeds.
In the United States the largest seed bank was developed in 1953 by the Department of Agriculture and placed in Fort Collins, Colorado, on the campus of Colorado State University. This site, called the National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation, was picked for its low humidity.
The Fort Collins seed vault has thick cement walls and is designed to withstand natural disasters like tornadoes or flooding. Backup generators guarantee complete climate control. Cold rooms of around -18 ° C preserve seeds and animal matter while other plants are submerged in liquid nitrogen inside stainless steel tanks. To preserve some plants, twigs, such as from apple trees, and portions of roots are saved instead of seeds. Varied species require different preservation techniques.
Although seeds and plants are being saved for future purposes, they have proven to be helpful today. For example, scientists have created a wheat resistant to harmful diseases.
A third of the requests to the Fort Collins facility for seeds come from outside the United States. Scientists at the seed bank also travel around the world to share their knowledge and to collect new items for the seed bank. In a way, the seed bank is a Noah’s Ark that is preserving history. It is also protecting the future with worldwide plants that might become extinct while fulfilling genetic needs today.
A newer international seed vault is found inside a mountain on Spitsbergen Island owned by Norway and located above the Arctic Circle. More than 930,000 varieties of seeds that produce food crops are stored in the Global Seed Vault. It was built and first supplied in 2008 after being sanctioned by an International Seed Treaty negotiated by the United Nations. Inside the building is 13,000 years of agricultural history. Plants and seeds are being lost in their natural habitat all of the time because of big and little doomsday events occurring in the world. Genetic materials could be completely lost if it weren’t for this Global Seed Vault.
These seeds are protected as of now, but the Global Seed Vault has its own threat. Because permafrost is melting due to climate change, the vault may suffer flooding in the future.
Another seed bank, the Institute of Plant Genetic Resources, is located in St. Petersburg, formerly Leningrad, Russia. First organized a century ago by botanist Nikolai Vavilov, it soon became renowned for its collection of seeds. From 1921 to 1940, Vavilov led expeditions to 64 countries to collect seeds from both wild and cultivated varieties of plants. However, the bank is of special interest not because of the variety of seeds and plants it maintains, although that is especially important, it draws attention because it has suffered from national events beyond its control.
Vavilov was arrested in 1940 during the Stalin era on fabricated information that he was seeking to undermine Soviet agriculture. He died three years later in prison of malnutrition. His name was erased, but later re-established under Leonid Brezhnev in the 1960s.
The next threat came during World War II during the siege of Leningrad by the Nazis. The city was surrounded and shelled for 880 days. The people were starving, including the scientists at the seed bank. One way of maintaining the seeds at all of the seed banks requires replanting and harvesting fresh seed, and this was done during the siege by digging up seven acres of land by hand near the war front. The seeds were planted, guarded through harvest, and a new supply of seed was carefully collected. It was amazing that neither citizen nor scientist took advantage of harvesting the edible plants that were grown. Slowly the scientists were dying. Before the siege was over, at least nine had died of starvation. None had allowed themselves to eat the collection of rice, peas, corn and wheat stored in the facility. After the war, the seed bank flourished and became one of the world’s premier facilities for the collection and preservation of plant genetic diversity.
However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Institute has fallen onto hard times because revenue is uncertain. At times the electricity bill has gone unpaid. Land developers are now seeking the land currently used for growing trees and raising plants. Because of the lack of funding, the minimum is being done to the grounds, and the area appears unkempt. However, the stock being grown is vigorous because it is being cared for.
Over the years, techniques for protecting biodiversity have been developed by the seed banks for keeping seeds and plants vigorous. In contrast, I haphazardly keep my seed in a cool dark basement of around 65-70° F. Apparently that may not be cool enough to keep seeds vigorous for years, but I did have almost 100 percent germination of the squash seed but a little less than 50 percent of the older pole bean seed. My seed bank is successful enough for me, but I now know why my seed gets too old. MSN
