World Seed Bank receives genetic material from fruit, soy and forage plants for the first time

The species sent this week by Embrapa Genetic Resources and Biotechnology, located in Brasília/DF, to the World Seed Bank of Svalbard come from six of the Company's Units. Furthermore, the Brazilian state-owned company is the only representative from the Americas in the experiment “100 year Seed Longevity Experiment” (or in a free translation Experiment on the longevity of seeds in 100 years), conducted by the  Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen), in Sweden. In this case, soybean seeds were sent.

According to the supervisor of Curadorias de Germoplasma Vegetal, researcher Aluana Gonçalves Abreu, the team from the Embrapa Genetic Bank (BGE) prepared a total of 370 accessions (samples) of seeds, a volume carefully stored in packaging cataloged with international code for each crop and hermetically closed to continue the journey to the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, where there are backup copies of seeds from several countries, kept at a constant temperature of -18°C.

The samples of fruit plants chosen for shipment were cashew, with a total of six varieties, and passion fruit with 13 varieties. Also on the list of seeds that will debut in Svalbard are 186 accessions of 17 forage species and 17 soybean varieties. The only species not going to Norway for the first time is  corn. 

This third shipment is a set of accessions of 143 varieties. The three shipments of this crop allow the preservation of 494 (around 11% of the total BAG collection) accessions of Brazilian origin in the world seed reserve, as well as the doubling of accessions from these groups that until then were not integrated into the Gene Bank from Embrapa.  

A blueprint for 100 years of research

Aluana  Abreu explains that of the total of 370 samples for Norway, five are soybean seeds intended only for the Seed Longevity Experiment. The only representative from the Americas to be part of the research promoted by the World Seed Bank of Svalbard, the material comes from the BAG of Embrapa Soja (Londrina-PR). This gives Embrapa a leading role and increases the responsibility of the Brazilian state-owned company on the world stage of agricultural research, placing the company among the main partner institutes of the initiative (check the box to see which organisms are part of the experiment that will begin the first tests with material from participants on 27 of August). 

Researcher Juliano Padua, BGE supervisor and curator of Colbase (Collection of Genetic Resources), explains that the Svalbard World Bank experiment will analyze the longevity of seeds for a century - which may seem like a long time for scientists in Brazil in 2022 , but possibly a beautiful legacy to future generations of researchers. "This is work that begins with our generation and will continue for our descendants. Furthermore, humanity will continue to depend on genetic resources to survive", says the researcher.

Although scientists have knowledge about the basic principle for seed conservation, there are still gaps to be answered, including for food crops important to humanity, such as soybeans, barley and wheat.
Over the course of a century, samples from 13 cultures will be analyzed. The seeds come from research institutions dedicated to agriculture in Germany, Brazil, India, Portugal and Thailand.