The Australian Grains Genebank (AGG) is a national center for storing genetic material for

plant breeding Plant breeding is the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. It is used to improve the quality of plant products for use by humans and animals. The goals of plant breeding are to produce crop varie ...

and research. The Genebank is in a collaboration with the Australian Seed Bank Partnership on an Australian Crop Wild Relatives project. It is located at Grains Innovation Park, in

Horsham Horsham () is a market town on the upper reaches of the River Arun on the fringe of the Weald in West Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Nearby to ...

, Victoria, Australia.

Objectives and challenges

The Australian Grains Genebank (AGG) aims to collect and conserve the seeds of Australian crop wild species, that are not yet adequately represented in existing collections. 40 key species of

crop A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. In other words, a crop is a plant or plant product that is grown for a specific purpose such as food, Fiber, fibre, or fuel. When plants of the same spe ...

wild, 32 of which are

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to Australia, have been identified as being crucial to increasing Australia's stock of grain crops. Seeds of crop wild relatives (CWR) will be available to plant breeders and researchers in order to develop the plant varieties of the future. The seeds will be stored not only in the Australian Grains Genebank but also in the Australian Seed Bank Partnership member seed banks. This project will enable research into new plant varieties, that are vital to Australia's agricultural future. Progress can be made in understanding the

genetic material Nucleic acids are large biomolecules that are crucial in all cells and viruses. They are composed of nucleotides, which are the monomer components: a 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base. The two main classes of nucleic aci ...

contained in the crops. One of the main objectives of the Australian Grains Genebank is helping the research; for this reason, this institution distributes about 25,000 packets of seeds to scientists in Australia and overseas. Therefore, they can evaluate this material for characteristics that could be used to breed more productive grain crops. These characteristics include the resistance to heat,

frost Frost is a thin layer of ice on a solid surface, which forms from water vapor that deposits onto a freezing surface. Frost forms when the air contains more water vapor than it can normally hold at a specific temperature. The process is simila ...

drought A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...

, pests and diseases. Another fact about Australian Grains Genebank is that it uses a DNA-based

soil test A soil test is a laboratory or in-situ analysis to determine the chemical, physical or biological characteristics of a soil. Possibly the most widely conducted soil tests are those performed to estimate the plant-available concentrations of nutri ...

ing service, to assist grain growers in predicting the losses from various diseases before a crop is planted. Growers have the option of changing

cultivars A cultivar is a kind of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and which retains those traits when propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue cult ...

or modifying cropping programs, in situations where the risk of crop loss is high. The service was launched in 1997 and the initial focus was on grain and

barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...

, but

pathogens In biology, a pathogen (, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of"), in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ. The term ...

of rotation crops are now included.

Facilities

In 2009 the

Victorian Government The Victoria State Government, also referred to as the Victorian Government, is the executive government of the Australian state of Victoria. As a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, the State Government was first formed in 1851 when Vic ...

provided $3 million to Sally Norton, leader of the Australian Grains Genebank to make the bank, also promising $600,000 per year for the next five years toward operating costs. The bank was officially opened in March, 2014. The budget is provided by the Government of Victoria and the Grains Research and Development Corporation, a corporation that is supported by the

Government of Australia The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national Executive (government), executive government of Australia, a federalism, federal Parliamentary system, parliamentary con ...

. The AGG is a national seed store bank completed by H2o architects, on the

Wimmera The Victorian government's Wimmera Southern Mallee subregion is part of the Grampians region in western Victoria. It includes most of what is considered the Wimmera, and part of the southern Mallee region. The subregion is based on the social ...

flatland at the edge of Horsham, Victoria, for the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries. The facility has more than 2.7 kilometres of space to give a secure store for

seed In botany, a seed is a plant structure containing an embryo and stored nutrients in a protective coat called a ''testa''. More generally, the term "seed" means anything that can be Sowing, sown, which may include seed and husk or tuber. Seeds ...

specimens. The building is also used for seed development, seed requests and contains a

packaging Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, and producing packages. Packaging can be described as a coo ...

and receiving area, administration areas, drying facilities, freezers working at -20 degrees

Celsius The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius temperature scale "Celsius temperature scale, also called centigrade temperature scale, scale based on 0 ° for the melting point of water and 100 ° for the boiling point ...

and a multipurpose national reception area, or lobby, to accommodate visiting groups. A double skin freezer design has an inner esky box of isolated panels, used for storing seeds and contained within an outer wood clad weather protecting cover. This design makes certain that the freezers work with less charge, reduce the energy consumption and operating costs of the facility. Efficiency is reached with a robust and environmentally responsible

mechanical system A machine is a physical system that uses power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromolec ...

. The building has a strong presence and provides innovation in design, technology and materials. The exterior layer is very similar to a

pergola A pergola is most commonly used as an outdoor garden feature forming a shaded walkway, passageway, or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support crossbeams and a sturdy open lattice, often upon which woody vines are t ...

, with thousands of timber slats, each one 120 centimetres long, creating the top layer.

Storage conditions and regeneration

The Horsham bank is the biggest of its kind and is designed for long-term storage. The material they conserve includes released crop varieties, breeding materials, and crop wild relatives. It serves not only producers but also processors, marketers, breeders and regional farming communities. Peter Walsh, the Victorian Minister of

Agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

, explained that the bank could contain about 300 million seeds from all around the globe. The bank has the capacity to hold 200,000 packets of seeds and more than 200 different crop species. In 2017 the collection held about 138,016 different seeds (or assessions), and it is growing about 3000 seeds each year. The most representative crop names stored are: *

Wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

with 42,624 different species coming from different areas of the world, mainly from Europe, Australia and Africa. *

Barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...

with 19,062 different types, mainly from Europe and

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

. *

Chickpea The chickpea or chick pea (''Cicer arietinum'') is an annual plant, annual legume of the family (biology), family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae, cultivated for its edible seeds. Its different types are variously known as gram," Bengal gram, ga ...

with 9,771 different breeds, coming from Australia, Africa, Europe and Asia Minor. *

Pea Pea (''pisum'' in Latin) is a pulse or fodder crop, but the word often refers to the seed or sometimes the pod of this flowering plant species. Peas are eaten as a vegetable. Carl Linnaeus gave the species the scientific name ''Pisum sativum' ...

with about 7,558 different categories, principally coming from Europe, the United States, South America and Australia. *

Lentil The lentil (''Vicia lens'' or ''Lens culinaris'') is an annual plant, annual legume grown for its Lens (geometry), lens-shaped edible seeds or ''pulses'', also called ''lentils''. It is about tall, and the seeds grow in Legume, pods, usually w ...

with 5,061 different species, coming from

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

, Central Asia, Europe and Africa. The seed

drying Drying is a mass transfer process consisting of the removal of water or another solvent by evaporation from a solid, semi-solid or liquid. This process is often used as a final production step before selling or packaging products. To be consider ...

room operates at 15 degrees Celsius and 15% of humidity. Seeds remain in this room form four to six weeks to dry down to around 6% seed

moisture Moisture is the presence of a liquid, especially water, often in trace amounts. Moisture is defined as water in the adsorbed or absorbed phase. Small amounts of water may be found, for example, in the air (humidity), in foods, and in some comme ...

before being sealed into foil packets and placed under long-term storage at -20 degrees Celsius. AGG routinely conduct seed viability monitoring tests because seeds lose their ability to

germinate Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an flowering plant, angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the sp ...

, even under long-term conditions. Once seed germination drops below 85%, and the seed quantity they have in the store is below 500 seeds, the genebank regenerates the seed. They regenerate around 4000 different samples per year under field and greenhouse environments. When they regenerate seeds, they consider the biology of the plants to ensure the right soil mix, temperatures, control pollination for outcrossing species.

Longevity

In order to keep the seeds safe, they are stored in 2.7 kilometres of shelf space at -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees

Fahrenheit The Fahrenheit scale () is a scale of temperature, temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the German-Polish physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736). It uses the degree Fahrenheit (symbol: °F) as the unit. Several accou ...

) with very low

. The seeds can remain viable for 50 or 100 years (depending on the kind of seed), preserving, in this way, the genetic materials. The primary reason for the bank to be created was the extreme temperatures in the area, up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summertime. Because of that, they had to ensure the protection of the grains all year around. The longevity of seeds differs; some keep well for decades, crops are grown out regularly and new grains assembled to increase the collection. A

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

carries the information about the origin and characteristics of each seed line (none genetically modified) and features of seed viability and the quantity held. Seeds are placed in controlled maturing environments with high temperatures and a certain

humidity Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation (meteorology), precipitation, dew, or fog t ...

(RH; 45 °C and 60% RH). The

Lithium chloride Lithium chloride is a chemical compound with the formula Li Cl. The salt is a typical ionic compound (with certain covalent characteristics), although the small size of the Li+ ion gives rise to properties not seen for other alkali metal chlorid ...

(LiCl) helps to obtain the right RH environment. The seed survival curve, that can be acquired from the

germination Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the spores of fungi, ...

test, is compared with the longevity of ‘marker’ species aged under the same conditions. From here, longevity categories can be distinguished: this is most important for alpine seeds, as recent proofs show that grains from cooler and wetter habitats are shorter lived than seeds from warmer ones. Longevity checks can also indicate how seeds should be conserved.

Australian Seed Bank Partnership

The main goal of the Australian Seed Bank Partnership is to save about 1700 native species of plant and

ecological Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely re ...

communities facing

extinction Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

due to

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

loss, and the fragmentation and degradation of

invasive species An invasive species is an introduced species that harms its new environment. Invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native spec ...

. To accomplish this objective, the partnership maintains a safe and

sustainable Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

environment, and collects and stores seeds to help research on the subject. The Australian Grains Genebank is one of the most important members of the Australian Seed Bank

Partnership A partnership is an agreement where parties agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments or combinations. Organizations ...

, which is an alliance between 12 organizations that are trying to deal with the multitude of threats facing Australian

biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

by working together. The partnership consists of nine seeds banks, that are storing and conserving seeds, and three flora-focused organizations, that have the mission not only to fulfill the gap between policymakers, researcher, and seed collectors, but also to manage the on-ground conservation and restoration activities. The activities related to the Australian Seed Bank Partnership consist of four simple concepts:

collecting The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining items that are of interest to an individual ''collector''. Collections differ in a wide variety of respects, most obvi ...

research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

, supporting restoration and sharing knowledge. * Collecting: the process of collection and conservation of the native seeds is carried out by organizations,

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

institutions and

community groups Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other or share some common problem come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. Unlike those who promote more-consensual community buil ...

, that are working together to provide a future-proof

insurance policy In insurance, the insurance policy is a contract (generally a standard form contract) between the insurer and the policyholder, which determines the claim (legal), claims which the insurer is law, legally required to pay. In exchange for an initial ...

for Australian's unique seed flora, which is particularly important in time of environmental stress. One of the main activities, in the field of collecting and storing seeds, involves the coordination of

seasonal A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

seeds collecting fields trips. Some experts, in fact, follow a rigid protocol to recognize, collect, clean and store seeds. The experts have also the important task of recording the information (such as the time of the year the seed has been collected, the associated

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plants and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular Taxon, taxa, life forms, structure, Spatial ecology, spatial extent, or any other specific Botany, botanic ...

and the soil type in the seed-collecting region) and the principal characteristics of the seed. Those information are considered fundamental to the seed banks' future rule in conservation. * Research: to keep the collected seeds available for a long time and under controlled conditions, the research process is a central concept. To store a seed properly the researcher must establish what is required by each category or type of seed (for example if they require a specific temperature or if it needs light and moisture cues to germinate). * Supporting Restoration: one of the most important activities in which the Australian Seed Bank Partnership is involved, is the

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, re ...

of all the data about Australian native crops. This process is considered that important because it informs the restoration of plant communities and landscapes. In order to achieve this objective, the Australian Seed Bank Partnership applies the

scientific Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

knowledge to the field and shares it with the restoration community. This institution, thanks to this process, has already saved a lot of Australian native plants, discovered new species and rediscovered species that they thought to be extinct in the wild. * Sharing knowledge: The Australian Seed Bank Partnership shares his knowledge among all the existing Australian conservation seed banks, restoration practitioners, and community groups. By sharing this knowledge, they hope to build a greater understanding of seed science in Australia. The Australian Grains Genebank is related to the Australian Seed Bank Partnership. They are actually collaborating on an Australian Crop Wild Relatives project. Through this project, these two institutions are trying to store all the Australian crop wild relatives, that are not yet represented in the ex-suit collection. The 32 wild crop species will be stored and preserved on the facilities of the Australian Grains Genebank. This project is considered really important, because saving and storing the wild crops will enable researchers into new plant varieties, that will be important for the future and the development of the Australian agriculture.

References

External links

Sustainablelivingsystems.org: "A Typology of Community Seed Banks"

Business Plan of Australian Seed Bank Partnership 2011-2020

Annual Report of Australian Seed Bank Partnership 2015-2016

Crop Trust
{{authority control Agricultural organisations based in Australia Conservation projects Gene banks Community seed banks Agricultural research institutes in Australia