The chastity vault

“This basically is like the safe deposit locker of a bank. The seeds will be saved under controlled temperature and humidity so that they will be conserved for periods up to two decades depending on the variety,without any loss in viability,” said K Thiyagarajan,director of the Centre for Plant Breeding and Genetics at the university.

The seed bank,named after pioneering agricultural scientist K Ramiah,the founder-director of the Central Rice Research Institute,Cuttack,is the first such facility by a state university in India. Set up at a cost of Rs 1.2 crore,funded by the Indian Council for Agriculture Research (ICAR),this is the second seed bank after the one existing under the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources of the ICAR in New Delhi. The bank will store about 75,000 varieties now,said the authorities,each with a sample size of 50-200 gm of seeds or up to 1,000 seeds,depending on the variety.

For several years,the university had been researching and developing new varieties through hybridisation. While this helped bring out new,distinct varieties every year,the university had to update the seed base frequently due to lack of a storage system. Also,largescale commercial cultivation led to unintended out-crossing,which not only affects the productivity of the subsequent crops but also corrupts the genetic traits of the original species.

“Initially,the bank is storing samples of commercially cultivated species like cereals,millets,pulses and oil seeds. There are facilities for long and medium-term storage,depending on the variety and necessity,” said P Shanmugasundaram,head of the university’s Department of Plant Genetic Resources. The medium-term storage is the facility to store the seeds for about five years when kept in a vacuum pouch of double layer aluminium foil at 5 degree Celsius and low humidity. In long-term—or ‘base collections’—storage,seeds are kept in -20 degree Celsius to store them without losing viability for 15-20 years or more.

“We can retrieve samples as and when we require them for research and development of new varieties,or we can provide them to peers from foreign countries who do similar studies. The purity of the original strain,a very important aspect in research,is well preserved,” said Thiyagarajan.

This,however,is only the beginning. The comprehensive plan of the seed bank goes beyond commercial crops and even its original idea of storage and preservation. Once the collection and storage of the crucial commercial varieties is over,the centre will send experts on periodical expeditions to collect samples from across the country,hunting for rare and indigenous varieties of uncultivated plants as well.

According to Thiyagarajan,it is necessary to collect and conserve samples of uncultivated plants which may otherwise become extinct over a period of time,especially if there is an external factor like climatic change. In this era of biotechnology and gene transfer,it is important to preserve and study the genotype or genetic composition of even wild species,besides safeguarding the precious biodiversity,he added.

“Though this is a storage bank,its complete operation will cover collection,conservation,documentation and research. We will study the samples,their patterns,spread and related varieties,which will give us a wealth of information,” explained professor Shanmugasundaram.

Experts said that the collection will also give significance to ‘landraces’,the indigenous varieties that have adapted to the local conditions to form the base breed for improvised hybrids. “A case in point is a rice variety in Ramnad. After being cultivated for hundreds of years,the landrace there can resist drought and other climatic stress common to that region,which we can study and introduce into new varieties,” he added.