Seed Keepers

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@intrex.net>]

ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Kim Kaplan
March 6, 2008
--View this report online, plus photos and related stories, at
www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr

Dear Editor:

No doubt you've seen a lot of the recent media coverage about Norway's new
Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the world's largest genebank, where "backup"
genetic material for thousands of plants is tucked away for safekeeping. And
as a media professional, maybe you've wondered about whether there's a U.S.
angle to this story.

The answer is "Absolutely!" For the past 50 years, the Agricultural Research
Service (ARS) National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP) at
Fort Collins, Colo., has been busy storing hundreds of thousands of samples
of plant germplasm and, more recently, animal germplasm. ARS is the chief
scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Like the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the NCGRP is a state-of-the-art,
super-high-tech facility designed to store duplicates of germplasm--the
parts of plants and animals that are needed for reproduction, such as seeds
or semen. The NCGRP has decades of experience in this field of science and
is recognized as a world leader in germplasm storage techniques and
maintaining sample quality, even for tropical seeds, many of which are
notoriously difficult to conserve.

The Fort Collins facility stores more than 730,000 samples of live plant
germplasm--such as seeds, pollen and plant cuttings--which can be removed
from storage and immediately used for regeneration, breeding or research.
It's also home to more than 330,000 genetic samples from more than 7,800
individual animals, including chickens, cattle, sheep, goats, swine, elk,
bison and aquatic animals...even insects! Not only does the NCGRP have
enough animal germplasm on hand to regenerate the Holstein dairy cattle
breed "from scratch" if the need arises; it's also helping preserve the
germplasm of a very special breed of "sacred sheep" that are culturally
important to the Navajo tribe of the American Southwest.

The genetic materials stored at Fort Collins are regenerated through the
National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS), which includes more than 20 ARS
genebanks throughout the United States. These genebanks hold nearly half a
million germplasm samples from a diverse array of plants, from avocados to
zinnias. NPGS distributes, for free, about 150,000 seed samples worldwide
every year for research that supports crop improvement, food security and
biological diversity.

There are great stories tucked away at the NCGRP, just waiting for your
reporters to call or visit. If you're interested in pursuing this story,
please give me a call and we'll be happy to set up phone interviews or
meetings with some of the scientists who are protecting our plants' and
animals' genetic diversity--not just for the United States, but for the
world.

Best regards,

Kim Kaplan
ARS Information Staff
(301) 504-1637
kim.kaplan@ars.usda.gov