When it comes to species preservation, even the top scientists cannot succeed without the help of seed banks. So many species of plants and vegetation went extinct because of man’s greed and foolishness. Mankind has undeniably become a plague to the planet with our constant deforestation, pollution, over-exploiting the natural resources, and other man-made disasters that seriously threaten mother nature and her inhabitants. Seed banks are created as an effort to redeem ourselves and help save the plant and vegetation species from becoming extinct.
Why is a Seed Bank Important?
Because of man-made disasters, we are slowly but surely losing many plant species that could be the key to unlock medicinal breakthroughs. Seed banks help protect the plant’s and vegetation’s’ genetic diversity that we humans require to research food and medicine. For example, the plants known as Taxus Brevifolia or Podophyllum Peltatum possess the potential to be used in the development of cancer medicine, but sadly, they are almost extinct for us to exploit their medicinal properties.
Another good example is the ancient Roman plant known as Silphium, which is favored by the people from both ancient Greek and Rome for various purposes such as food seasoning, perfume, aphrodisiac, medicine, and even contraceptives. Ancient people utilized their stalk to give flavor to food, and the leaves were utilized as cattle feed that can improve their meat’s flavor and tenderness. Truly mother nature has blessed us with many blessings, but we took them for granted.
How Do They Work?
Since there are many seed banks in the world and they’re developed with different local policies and cultures, we can’t say every seed bank operates the same way. But they follow a certain code and purpose, which is to provide sanctuary for seeds so they can be preserved for future generations to come. Normally, for a seed to persevere, it would need to be stored under low temperatures where it’s dry and cool. A temperature range of 32° and 41° is exemplary to store seeds, and most seed banks are designed to provide the ideal environment to preserve seeds. Therefore they are set to be at that same range.
Keeping a seed from blooming does not take much effort, but it does require great attention. However, we won’t have any trouble keeping them or storage shortage because of their small size. A paper bag or glass bottle will suffice as minimum storage space to store many seeds at once.
The Bottom Line
It’s important that we protect mother nature as she has done nothing but good for us and letting us use her as a living space. Nonetheless, her children are important since they cannot survive on their own because of human interference and influence. We have to preserve them or disrupt the ecosystem balance and lose our food source in the process. Then we’re the ones facing extinction.…