Webbinuarium om vilda kulturväxtsläktingar 2: "Seed collection in wild plant species – challenges and lessons learned"

Wild plants, like crop wild relatives (CWR), are best conserved in nature. This is called in situ conservation. There they will evolve and naturally adapt to changes in the environment. But sometimes drastic changes, for example infrastructure constructions, flooding, or invasive species, threaten the species in the wild. Then it can be valuable to also have a back up of the genetic diversity in a gene bank. This is called ex situ conservation. Most plant species, but not all, can be stored as dry seeds in freezers. The benefit is twofold: The genetic diversity is kept safe and can be used to restore the wild population if it becomes extinct, and the seeds also become accessible for researchers and plant breeders who can use the genetic diversity in their work to adapt our crops to new challenges, like climate change.

Seed collecting is a job for patient and meticulous people. You must be at the site when the seeds are ripe, not a week before, and not a week after when they are already dispersed. Some CWR are quite easy to collect, like Carum carvi and Daucus carota subsp. carota. You can find good amounts of seeds that don’t take too much time to collect. But other species, like those within the Diplotaxis genus, get flowers during a period of three months, and you must revisit the locations several times to sample enough seeds. Despite challenges, seed collection is very meaningful, and we are contributing to the long-term conservation of biodiversity.

In the seminar, we will discuss the importance of good taxonomic knowledge, minimum standards for seed collection, and timing as well as give practical examples of seed collection and processing.  

Speakers: Magnus Göransson (Icelandic Institute of Natural History), Kristina Bjureke (Natural History Museum Oslo), Anna Palmé (NordGen).

Language: English.