Germination Testing in Tanzania

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has a four-year agreement with the Government of Tanzania, with the aim of building capacity to conserve genetic resources through the acquisition of facilities necessary for seed banking.

The National Plant Genetic Resources Centre (NPGRC) and the National Herbarium of Tanzania (NHT) are housed at the Tropical Pesticide Research Station (TPRS) in Arusha. Another partner is the Tanzania Tree Seed Agency (TTSA), based in Morogoro. Technical staff from the MSBP visited these partners to offer guidance at the beginning of the project.

Anna with drier at NPGRC RBG Kew

National Plant Genetic Resources Centre

Anna Hans Makundi and five scientific staff run a clean and well-organised laboratory at this facility. Availability of water to the building was reported to be a problem, sometimes impacting on laboratory activities. Power was unreliable, with frequent power cuts occurring and no generator backup on the site. One set of labs included equipment such as a water still for distilled water, a microwave, an autoclave and a stereoscope. In the germination labs, there were three disused germination cabinets, programmable but with no lights or refrigeration. There was also a large unused cooled incubator with lights, which had been delivered from the USA and required conversion from 115V to 240V. This could be quickly commissioned with a simple re-wiring operation, and was subsequently set up for germination testing.

Germination tests at NPGRC were being performed immediately after collecting, post-drying and then every three to five years after freezing. All seeds were sterilised in 10% sodium hypochlorite prior to sowing. The pass rate for germination tests was set at 85%. Ambient germination testing was being conducted using filter paper in glass dishes with distilled water.

These labs also housed ten new upright freezers and two large incubator-driers controlled by temperature setting, which were two years old and still reliable. It was recommended that these latter units could be set to 18ºC which would yield a relative humidity of 15%, so they could be used to dry collections. Moisture content tests were being performed on collections before packing in foil bags and freezing. Use of non-destructive moisture status tests with a humidity sensor were recommended, and this equipment would be supplied by the MSBP. As the storage space at -20ºC was found to be full to capacity, the installation of a cold room was advised and agreed to be more energy efficient than several freezers in the long term.

TTSA Germination lab RBG Kew

Tanzania Tree Seed Agency

The operations at TTSA are headed by Mr Msanga, with twelve staff assisting in seed processing in the laboratories when not collecting in the field. To date, 196 species of trees and shrubs have been collected, 113 of which are indigenous to Tanzania. Long term storage of seeds is not currently being carried out at this site.

A large ambient germination room with wooden shelving, timer controlled lights and additional humidity, was being used at this facility. At the time of visiting, this was running at 32.7ºC and 61.5% relative humidity. Washed and graded sand was used for germination tests of larger seeds. The sand was un-sterilised, but was not re-used. Smaller species were grown on filter paper in glass dishes. Germination cabinets were considered, on the advice of MSBP technical staff, in order to enhance germination facilities. A small laboratory at the facility contained a fume hood for germination scoring, two stereoscopes and a microscope, two old unused incubators, autoclaves, hotplates and a water still for distilled water.

There were two large cold stores with capacity for up to 2,500 kg of seed in each, set at 4ºC and 16ºC, but no sub-zero storage. Following discussions it was decided that the 16ºC cold room could be converted to a dry room by installing a de-humidification unit. Supplying an adequate dry room and germination cabinets at this site would mean that all TTSA collections could be cleaned and dried, with pre- and post-drying germination tests being carried out prior to transfer to NPGRC for long-term storage and dispatch to the MSBP.