Hyderabad-based ICRISAT to be part of 100-year global seed longevity experiment

For this experiment, data from seeds of 13 crops will be collected, four of which will be provided by ICRISAT’s genebank.
The Global Seed Vault in Svalbard. (Photo | Twitter)
The Global Seed Vault in Svalbard. (Photo | Twitter)

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) will be part of a global ‘100-year experiment’ to know how long seeds live at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. For this experiment, data from seeds of 13 crops will be collected, four of which will be provided by ICRISAT’s genebank.

The institute will add seeds of chickpea, groundnut, pearl millet, and pigeonpea to the experiment during the year 2022-23.

According to a media release by ICRISAT on Tuesday, the experiment will prove crucial in understanding the conservation of seeds and could someday prove essential in the restoration of the world’s food resources. 

It said, “The main principle for conserving seeds is that well-dried and frozen seeds from many important food crops can stay alive for a very long time in a genebank. Exactly for how long seeds can maintain germination after storage under optimal conditions is not fully explored.” 

Dr Vania Azevedo, Head of ICRISAT’s RS Paroda Genebank, said, “The seeds will be tested initially before being put in the vault for storage at -18 degrees Celsius. They will be taken out for testing once every decade during the course of the next 100 years to determine longevity”. 

The five other institutions that will be participating in the experiment along with ICRISAT are National Rice Seed Storage Laboratory for Genetic Resources (NRSSL) in Thailand, National Institute for Agricultural and Veterinary Research (INIAV) in Portugal, Embrapa in Brazil, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) in Germany and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen) in Sweden, according to the media release.

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