Seed Banks

     Seed banks preserve seeds on a long term basis in a view to revive the good genes to produce more yielding, disease resistant, immune crops thus preserving the generic diversity to retain the long historic and cultural values.

    Good seed is fundamental to healthy agriculture. Then to secure good seeds is like securing gold in modern terms. Rare seeds are collected & secured in seed banks around the world. They're dried & made with less than 5% moisture content before it’s packed securely and stored normally under -18℃.

World has numerous seed banks in different parts of the world.

  

      1. Svalbard Global seed vault, Norway.

      2. Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank Project, Wakehurst, England.

      3. Navdanya, Uttarakhand, India. 

      4.National Center for Genetic Resources, Fort Collins, Colorado.

      5. Vavilov Research Institute, Russia.

      6. ICRISAT seed bank at Pattanchervu, Telangana, India.

   Svalbard Global seed vault or Noah's vault, biggest seed bank in the world is built inside a sandstone mountain on Spitsbergen, a Norwegian island. Operated by Global Crops Diversity Trust, it has collected 10 lakhs rare seed samples from around the world & stored intact. Vault is with 15 lakh seed capacity. The Noah's vault is built 120m below dry ground surface with permafrost acting as a natural freezer.

   International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) bank at Pattanchervu, Telangana, India has 1,26,830 seed samples. Seeds of 5 types of small Millets- Chickpea, Pigeonpea, Pearlmillet, Sorghum & Groundnut collected from 144 countries are stored here.

ICRISAT has seed samples of 45 years old too. An immune seed 'Maruti' was made available to farmers in 1986. 53 countries have taken 143 species of seeds from here to the farmland.