The Millennium Seed Bank Project

The Millennium Seed Bank is based in Kew Gardens and aims to protect and conserve the world's plant species which are most threatened by extinction and are most useful to humans in the future.

Why conserve seeds?
Plants are the most valuable things on our earth: they provide us with resources for food, materials and medicines; they help maintain the complex ecosystems on earth; the air we breathe and the water we drink is purified and sustained by plants. However, this is being threatened. Deforestation, over-exploitation, introduction of alien-species, are just some of the human activities which are endangering the future of our valuable plants.

How the seed bank works:
- They collect seeds from all over the world by working with partners from over 50 countries (see a map of collection projects here) which help the seed bank workers to decide which plant seeds are of the most priority because they are at use to the country and are most endangered. Seeds are taken from a number of plants in the species to ensure genetic diversity.
- When they get to the seed bank, the seeds are labelled and dried to remove for a length of time to remove moisture increase their lifetime. They are then cleaned to remove bacteria and separate from plant material.
- Seeds are then sealed in containers and frozen and stored at around -20'C so the seeds are dormant. It is estimated that for every 5'C under 0, the seeds' lifetime is doubled. Seeds' lifetime varies from seed to seed but some seeds can be stored for a few hundred years!
- Extensive research is carried out on all plant seed species to work out how best to store the seeds. Seeds are germinated regularly to test their viability and to test the environmental factors that help the chances of a seed's germination. 
- A database of accurate information about every single seed species stored at the bank and the details of their collection so we can understand the nature of each species.

Facts:
- The seed bank now holds an estimated 10% of the world's plant species and aims to increase this to 25%  by 2020.
- It is estimated that the global value of nature's services is  £11–37 trillion - this is why the kew seed bank is so vital to us!
-They tend to collect seeds from alpine, dryland, coastal and island ecosystems, as these are most vulnerable to climate change
- The seed bank at kew is the largest ex-situ collection of seeds in the world!
- The building itself covers an area of 5,000m² and cost £17.8m to construct.

You can read more about the seedbank project here: http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/millennium-seed-bank-partnership