Kew's 'Difficult' Seeds Project

We have just launched brand new webpages for Kew's ‘Difficult’ Seeds Project, which supports crop gene banks and farmers in the conservation of plants used for food and agriculture in Africa. The webpages contain information about the project and 160 profile pages for species that have been identified as being difficult to handle, store or use.

17 Dec 2010

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A 'Difficult' Seeds workshop Burkina Faso

A 'Difficult' Seeds training workshop in Burkina Faso (Image: RBG Kew)

Kew's ‘Difficult’ Seeds Project works with crop gene banks and farmers to conserve plants used for food and agriculture in Africa. The aims of the project are to improve the identification, handling, storage and use of seeds that have been described as ‘difficult’ by gene bank managers and technicians.

At stakeholder workshops held in Burkina Faso and South Africa, we worked with managers to identify the training needs of gene bank staff in Africa.

These workshops were followed in 2007 by four training workshops (two conducted in English and two in French), to which we invited gene bank technicians from various institutes across the African continent. At these workshops we also got the opportunity to work with local farmers in the host contries and to share information on the appropriate handling and storage of seeds.

As a result of these workshops, we have put together a list of 220 species that were identified as being difficult to handle, store or use, and have developed species profile pages for nearly 160 of these, to help gene bank technicians to overcome difficulties. We have also provided training resouces and useful links to enable gene banks to run training courses amongst their staff, and with local farmers and community seed groups.

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2 comments on 'Kew's 'Difficult' Seeds Project'

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Vanessa Sutcliffe says

04/03/2011 10:14:45 AM | Report abuse

Thanks for your message, David. Seeds can be difficult to handle for various reasons. Firstly this may be due to their storage behaviour: orthodox seeds can be dried and frozen for long-term storage, whereas recalcitrant or intermediate seeds do not tolerate drying to the same extent, and therefore can't be frozen. Then, despite our best efforts in preparing orthodox seeds for long-term storage, some species have seeds that are inherently short-lived and will not remain viable for as long as other species. So that we can get seeds to germinate when we need to use them, we may need to overcome dormancy in some species. And finally, if seeds have been collected at an immature stage of development, have not been dried or stored under appropriate conditions, or have suffered damage either in the field or during processing, these factors will ultimately affect the longevity in storage and the viability of a seed collection.
For more information take a look at this web page