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ORCHID SEED SYMBIOSIS. "Orchids and a few other groups of plants ... depend on mycorrhizal fungi for nutrition during germination and the early growth of the seedling. Some terrestrial orchid seedlings, in fact, spend the first few years of their lives deriving energy from the fungi and do not produce green leaves." This can complicate GERMPLASM banks. http://lnkd.in/ddyNBfG View in LinkedIn

SEED DORMANCY. "Many species of plants have seeds that delay germination for many months or years, and some seeds can remain in the soil seed bank for more than 50 years before germination. Some seeds have a very long viability period, and the oldest documented germinating seed was nearly 2000 years old based on radiocarbon dating." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_dormancy View in LinkedIn

SEED LONGEVITY. "Although the most sensational claims for seed longevity are almost certainly bogus, seeds of Canna compacta apparently can live for at least 600 years." http://5e.plantphys.net/article.php?ch=t&id=9 View in LinkedIn

TIME CAPSULES. "Desiccated seeds from a 6th century AD storage vessel recovered from Qasr Ibrîm, Egypt, were examined for the presence of lipids and nucleic acids. A remarkable degree of lipid preservation was discovered, the fatty acid and sterol profiles being very similar to those of modern radish seeds." http://lnkd.in/dhDu3zj View in LinkedIn

PLANT SEEDS are complicated, clever, and curious packaged embryos, with tremendously diverse and ingenious strategies for survival. These seemingly fragile spaceships of future plant life can survive severe and even catastrophic environments, and hibernate for very long periods until conditions improve. http://lnkd.in/ddyNBfG View in LinkedIn

AEGIS EUROPEAN GENEBANK. Includes 44 European countries, over 1 million accessions, with germ plasm conserved in 35 countries. http://lnkd.in/dg4UxgZ View in LinkedIn

ISRAELI GENEBANK. "The introduction of modern agricultural technology has led to the decline and loss of many landraces indigenous to Israel. To combat this phenomenon, the Israel Gene Bank was established to gather existing collections of genetic materials of traditional crops into a single, comprehensive seed bank." http://www.yadhanadiv.org.il/project/israel-plant-gene-bank View in LinkedIn

THE BILLION SEED BANK, or 10% of the global plant total. "The Millennium Seed Bank Project is an international conservation project coordinated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew ... Launched in the year 2000, its purpose is to provide an "insurance policy" against the extinction of plants in the wild by storing seeds for future use." http://lnkd.in/dThPgD6 View in LinkedIn

GENE VAULTS "vast buildings devoted to preserving the seeds of as many plants as possible, partly for scientific research and partly to hedge our bets as more and more plants go extinct ... the Svalbard "Doomsday" Seed Vault, are designed to withstand global catastrophe..." http://lnkd.in/dyTsvR9 View in LinkedIn

"THE SVALBARD SEED VAULT has the capacity to store 4,5 million different seed samples ... a maximum of 2,25 billion seeds may be stored ... will therefore have the capacity to hold all the unique seed samples that are conserved today by all the approximately 1400 genebanks ... all over the world." http://www.regjeringen.no/mobil/en/dep/lmd/campain/svalbard-global-seed-vault/frequently-asked-questions.html?id=462221 View in LinkedIn