Environmental Sustainability: Seed Banks

Environmental sustainability begins with seed. If that sounds like a ridiculously simple statement, it's because it is. Though many people may not recognize it, the variety of produce offered at a typical box store is extremely limited in scope compared to the variety of foods that both naturally exist and are being cross-bred (not genetically modified). Seed banks can hold hundreds of varieties of potato, for example, when the general public is probably only aware of 8 - 10 varieties.

Seed banks are places that are reserved for preserving  the untold varieties of seeds; they are not only a matter of environmental sustainability by way of biodiversity, but also as a means of national security in the event of seed destruction by war, famine or (possibly) human-initiated genetic mutation. Having a seed bank serves two major purposes: ensuring independence from the tyranny of corporations and governments and containing heirloom varieties (and hybrids) to help combat the natural cycle of blight by way of diversity.

There are different kinds of seed banks: some that hold actual seed at appropriate temperatures for storing and some that hold seed by growing them. Pavlovsk Experimental Station is of the latter. Wkipedia describes it like this:

Pavlovsk Experimental Station is an agricultural experiment station and genebank that is part of the Institute of Plant Industry and situated in Pavlovsk near St. Petersburg, Russia. It was started in 1926 by agricultural scientist Nikolai Vavilov and contains an extensive collection of more than 5,000 varieties of fruits and berries.

The Pavlovsk station's collection contains more than 100 varieties each of gooseberries, raspberries, and cherries. It also contains more than 1,000 varieties of strawberries. More than 90% of the collection is found in no other research collection or genebank.

The collection is a field genebank, meaning that the varieties are stored as plants in the ground. Most of the species concerned do not breed true from seeds, and so the varieties cannot be stored as seeds.