From theory to practice in genebank operations

Do you find the Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture a little, shall we say, hard to digest? Not to worry, there are now handy practical guides for the application of the Genebank Standards. Which will hopefully make them a little easier to use.

The action steps of the genebank workflow are presented in a sequential manner and provide guidance on the complex steps and decisions required when operating a seed genebank, field genebank, or an in vitro genebank. The accompanying summary charts for the respective action steps underscore the intended use of each practical guide as a handbook for routine genebank operations.

Let us know in the comments what you think.

The Seed Information Database is back!

Readers may remember a post from about a year ago announcing with sadness the imminent demise of Kew’s Seed Information Database (SID).

Well, cheer up. It seems SID is back.

The Seed Information Database (SID) is now hosted by the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (RBGK). SID is a compilation of seed biological trait data, with records derived from measurements and observations on seed collections held in Royal Botanic Garden Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank and from other unpublished and published sources, through donation or abstraction.

Good news for genebanks everywhere.

Brainfood: Sulawesi Warty Pig, Neolithic violence, Early cotton, Livestock poop, Pontic millet, Bronze Age opium, Sami shamanism, Wild chickens

Celebrating beans, by sharing beans

With World Pulses Day coming up on 10 February, there is probably no better time to sign up for the INCREASE Project’s citizen science experiment, Share the Bean.

You can register your participation until 28 February. What will you do? I’ll tell you what you’ll do:

  • receive a packet with a few different bean varieties to grow in your garden, terrace or balcony
  • plant and grow these seeds following the specific instructions provided by the project
  • nurture your beans, and collect and record information about them using a handy app
  • suggest, and receive, tips and best practices, also via the app
  • harvest the seeds and offer them for exchange, and cook and taste them too if you like
  • send your assessments and recipes for inclusion in “Thousands of traditional and innovative recipes to cook beans,” to be published on the project website