Dr Christina Walters 'How seed science might save the world: a perspective on seed banking from USDA'

Dr Christina Walters is Research Leader in Plant Germplasm Preservation Research at the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation in the United States. Christina is best known for her innovative studies of seed physiology and its application to conservation of genetic resources for diverse plant species. Learn how the life of seeds can be maximised and how this is important for the long-term future of food and agriculture.

Our planet is in the midst of a water, energy and food security nexus (Wikipedia, visited on 14 Nov 2015). Ensuring that we can accommodate the needs of our species and the other species that share the Earth requires wise stewardship of natural resources and careful management of biological diversity. Solution(s) will undoubtedly be complex and take time to implement. Seed banks, which store plant germplasm for decades to centuries, allow us to 'buy time' and make knowledge-based decisions. Seed banks are akin to libraries; they house a wealth of genetic information that is readily accessible to studies of the benefits of biological diversity, methods to sustain it and implications when it is lost. The USDA National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP) is a seed bank dedicated to the goals of agriculture to provide ample food sustainably and contribute to a land conservation ethic. NCGRP’s large collection of seeds is comprised of about equal portions of named cultivars, genetic stocks and crop progenitors or landraces. NCGRP also partners with conservation groups and public land managers to bank seeds of species important to US landscapes. Our success in seed banking rests predominantly on seeds’ remarkable ability to survive, quiescently, for long periods. How seeds accomplish this feat is increasingly understood and spur on new questions about the basis for variation in seed survival times, ways to prolong viability or to measure or predict viability loss in a quiescent organism, and means to “jump-start” recovery metabolism that leads to organized growth and germination. Cross-cutting issues of time and diversity are essential components of seed science and seed banking. With excellent collections of viable seeds, we ensure that future scientists have essential biological resources.

Venue: Theatrette at the Australian National Botanic Gardens, Clunies Ross St, Acton ACT