Their work supports on-ground restoration activities, including the recovery of post-fire recovery following devastating fires of 2019-20.
In addition to storing the seeds themselves there is an active research programme in the Seed Centre that is needed to support effective collections management and our ability to use the stored seeds in the future.
Determining the germination requirements of seeds supports the seed banking process and allows this information to be made publicly accessible.
The South Australian Seed Conservation Centre was formed in 2002 to help protect the state’s threatened plant species from extinction. In 2003 they joined a partnership with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew Millennium Seed Bank (UK), as part of a global seed bank partnership involving over 100 countries and territories working together on the largest ex situ plant conservation programme in the world.
Through this work, the Seed Conservation Centre contributes to the international objectives of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation and over the last 20 years has been crucial in the conservation of species found only in South Australia and therefore being of global importance.
Wild seeds from plants indigenous to South Australia have been collected from across the state and safeguarded in long-term storage at subzero temperatures in our on-site Seed Bank in Adelaide Botanic Garden.
The Seed Centre undertakes trips to the regions of South Australia to collect seeds, timed for optimal ripeness.
Once at the Garden, the seed is dried and cleaned using sieves and aspirators. It is further dried in a controlled environment room at 15°C and 15% humidity for up to six weeks to kill any remaining organisms.
The seed is tested for viability using x-rays, cut tests and germination experiments before finally making its way into long-term storage.
There are over 2,000 of the 3,500 individual species of the State’s plants represented in the seedbank, with over 85% of the State’s threatened flora in storage.
To help bolster the number of seeds that are stored in our freezers, and that are used for regeneration projects, the team created a Threatened Plant Seed Orchard, located at Adelaide Botanic Garden. This is a place to nurture threatened plants that are of particular concern. It genuinely is conservation in action. You can explore the orchard on your next visit.
Threatened plants on Kangaroo Island have also been thrown a life-line with the development of a Threatened Flora Seed Production Garden in 2022. You can discover more about this here.
