Improving the Identification, Handling and Storage of ‘Difficult’ Seeds

Staff at the Gene Bank of Kenya (GBK) examine container options for bulk seed storage

Focusing on Africa, the 'Difficult' Seeds project is working with crop genebanks to improve the identification, handling, storage and use of ‘difficult’ seeds - so-called because they cannot be readily conserved and/or easily used. These difficulties may be related to recalcitrant storage behaviour, inappropriate handling of orthodox species or dormancy problems.

Funded by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and delivered by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew), in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the project addresses the need to build capacity to conserve plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. The project also hopes to benefit farmers and others aiming to maintain seed quality during storage at the community level.

Stakeholder workshops held in 2006 identified a list of around 280 ‘difficult’ species, and produced guidelines for future project activities, including:

1. providing training in techniques and methods for handling ‘difficult’ seeds.
2. compiling and facilitating access to scientific and technical information.
3. facilitating the acquisition of basic technical equipment.
4. supporting and facilitating gene banks to engage with farmers.

We held four training workshops in 2007-8, in Kenya, Burkina Faso, Botswana, and Morocco, benefitting 60 participants from 48 institutes in 38 countries. 80 farmers from the four host countries attended associated farmers workshops. The training workshops were highly successful and received positive feedback from participants.

A ‘difficult’ seeds website, which will make available the training resources developed by the project and draw together key information on the seed biology of ‘difficult’ species, is currently under development.

For further information please contact

diffseed-english@kew.org or diffseed-french@kew.org