The Millennium Seed Bank in Ardingly is on BBC One’s The Green Planet this weekend: the facility that stores seeds in bomb and radiation-proof vaults

The Millennium Seed Bank in Ardingly, which is home to more than 2.4 billion seeds, is set to make an appearance on BBC One’s The Green Planet.
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The episode, narrated by David Attenborough, airs at 7pm this Sunday (February 6) and explores the ways people are helping plants that face extinction.

The seed bank is located at Wakehurst, run by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and was started in 2000.

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It stores seeds at -20c in flood, bomb and radiation-proof vaults so they can be preserved for future generations and so that plants can be reintroduced into the wild.

Germination specialist Rachael Davies. Picture: Lawrence Smith.Germination specialist Rachael Davies. Picture: Lawrence Smith.
Germination specialist Rachael Davies. Picture: Lawrence Smith.

This newspaper was invited on a tour of the facility lead by Dr Elinor Breman.

Dr Breman explained that the first stop for any seed coming into the facility is the upstairs dry room.

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“It’s kind of like taking a trip around the world in one very contained space,” she said, adding that seeds are placed in paper or cloth bags and the temperature is controlled to extend their life spans.

Dr Elinor Breman in one of the drying rooms. Picture: Lawrence Smith.Dr Elinor Breman in one of the drying rooms. Picture: Lawrence Smith.
Dr Elinor Breman in one of the drying rooms. Picture: Lawrence Smith.

A dryer seed will also be more robust to the cleaning process, she said.

“The seed collection is not just the seed,” said Dr Breman. “It’s the seed, the data from the field and also the herbarium, which is a dried, pressed plant specimen.”

She said that so far the bank has conserved seeds from 97 countries for endangered plants and endemic plants, as well as plants that are economically important.

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“Every single seed is precious to us,” she said, adding that the bank now has 40,000 different species.

Seeds being stored at -20c. Picture: Lawrence Smith.Seeds being stored at -20c. Picture: Lawrence Smith.
Seeds being stored at -20c. Picture: Lawrence Smith.

Dr Breman said that the bank also needs representative genetic diversity from a species, so they gather seeds from multiple different populations.

After the seeds are cleaned a small sample are x-rayed to check their health.

“They can look perfect from the outside but they could have insects inside of them or other kinds of damage,” said Dr Breman.

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The building was built to last 500 years (with built-in expansion space) so the team want their collections to last a long time.

Seeds being stored at -20c. Picture: Lawrence Smith.Seeds being stored at -20c. Picture: Lawrence Smith.
Seeds being stored at -20c. Picture: Lawrence Smith.

By freezing seeds in -20c vaults and storing them in hermetically sealed containers the life span of a seed can be extended by tens or hundreds of times.

However, the seeds have to go into a second downstairs drying room first so they can be dried down to 15 percent relative humidity.

“If you put wet seeds into the freezer they’re going to die,” said Dr Breman.

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Germination specialist Rachael Davies said that the seed bank team will often take seeds out of the freezer and carry out germination tests.

“That’s to check the viability of the seeds,” said Rachael.

“It’s also to develop a germination protocol that we can use on the collection in the future that will allow us to produce plants from those seeds.”

Professor Hugh Pritchard, senior reseach leader, Comparative Seed Biology. Picture: Lawrence Smith.Professor Hugh Pritchard, senior reseach leader, Comparative Seed Biology. Picture: Lawrence Smith.
Professor Hugh Pritchard, senior reseach leader, Comparative Seed Biology. Picture: Lawrence Smith.

Rachel explained that incubators set at different temperatures can mimic different climates and that some seeds germinate in a few days while others can take months.

Dr Breman added that these tests let scientists know whether there has been any decline in the seed and whether any seeds need to be collected again.

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“We send out about a thousand collections a year for use and that’s mostly in research to better understand the properties and traits of the species that we hold.”

One example of this, she said, is the seed bank’s Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change programme.

She said that agricultural gene banks aim to discover whether plants hold traits like drought tolerance and tolerance to high temperature.

“These are the kinds of things that we’re going to need to breed into our crops in order to withstand climate change.”

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In fact, The Millennium Seed Bank sent seeds back to Australia after the recent bush fires so they could put seeds back into the devastated landscape.

Conservation partnership coordinator Michael Way said the Millennium Seed Bank tries to establish partnerships with organisations in other countries – academic, government or NGOs.

“We need permission from a partner government before we can receive seeds and often to carry out research projects, and certainly to carry out field work,” he said.

On top of this, The Millennium Seed Bank also does research into enhancing longevity through the cryopreservation of seeds.

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Professor Hugh Pritchard, senior research leader of comparative seed biology, said the life spans of seeds can be dramatically different and his team studies the many different factors that affect this.

People can watch The Green Planet on BBC iPlayer or visit The Millennium Seed Bank website here.