Seed Banks in Australia

Seed banks in Australia

Seed Bank

A seed bank is used to store seeds as a supply for planting if the reserved seeds get damaged. A seed bank is a kind of DNA bank. The seeds which are kept in a seed bank could be food crops, or they might also comprise those uncommon varieties to defend biodiversity.

There could be various reasons for storing seeds. When it comes to food crops, some of the rarest species are stored here. Some of them are even on the verge of extinction. Stocking up seeds also provides back up against disastrous events such natural calamities, outbreak of diseases, or other undesired occurrences. Seed swap or seed library encourage repeated reprocessing and distribution of seeds, seed banks are not always accessible to the public. Seed banks of Australia are very well preserved and are highly secured.

Challenges

A seed bank in Australia has to face the following challenges –

1. Stored specimen needs to be replanted on a regular basis in order to maintain their availability
2. Only a handful of biodiversities of the world can be stored.
3. It is impossible or difficult to keepobstinate seeds.
4. Seed banks have to live with the burden of maintaining a catalog and an accurate data management system. Certain important points have to be documented, like the identity of the plant, location of the sampling quantity of the seed and other important details. Other details, such as systems and conditions of farming where the crops were produced, and the rotations which they formed. These details are important for future reference.
5. It is very expensive to run a seed bank. Interventions of experts are also required on a regular basis.
6. Most of these concerns are common to the seed banks in Australia. When it comes to using seed banks as a back up during the events of emergency, it remains very doubtful that whether at all they would be able to meet the demands or not. The reason is most of these seed banks have a limited supply of resources.

There are numerous seed banks that ship to Australia, these seed banks include food crops as well as seeds from various medicinal plants which can be used to produce life saving drugs. These seed banks are a good source of seeds.