[Collection & Preservation of Seeds Activity]

In Research Institute for Bioresources, Okayama University, collection of agroforestry seeds by Mantaro Kondo, collection of barley by Ryukei Takahashi and collection of weed seeds by Yasuo Kasahara, etc. have been conducted over the years. Barley and Wild Plant Resources Center was established in the Institute on April, 1997.

We well know that all crops which support human life have roots in wild plants. Technology is making steady progress, but crops will be supplied for food even in the distant future. Various creatures are threatened with extinction and killed off. Even if biogenetics makes rapid advances, there are little possibility that extinct forms of life will be revived. Therefore it's crucially important to protect endangered species; equally, it's vital to conserve genes of known plants now in a viable condition. In order to maintain biodiversity, conserving ecosystems themselves is the most significant and reliable. In addition to the attempt, we suppose that it's essential to preserve seeds of all higher plants in a viable condition immediately, then we started collection & preservation of seeds activity.

We have been collecting and presevring especially weeds. Almost all kinds of weed species in Japan have been collected and preserved in our center; however, that is not yet sufficient quantity and quality. Therefore we planned to widen the scope of our collecting and preserving to the whole wild species. First we put emphasis on species called common species. Of course, we preserve rare species and endangered species as welll. We need your cooperation for our activity because of poor staffs and budget in our center. Please send us any kinds of species such as ordinary species, seeds of rare species, etc. Although we don't well know all ways of preserving, we would like to treat species you send as safely as possible. Please don't mind if you send the same species as we have. They are valuable because they have different habitats.



[The Way of Sending Seeds]

Please send both seeds and herbarium specimens covered with a newspaper. It's ideal to preserve seeds together with herbarium specimens for each plant. In many cases, plants will be dying when they have fully ripe seeds. That doesn't matter. Also you don't need to select seeds. Half-dried spikes are enough. We preserve seeds together with spikes and leaves for each plant, which are useful for seed identification. You can receive stamps form us instead of postal shipping charge. But we are sorry that we can't return a further favor to you.

You can utilize seeds from us. However, we can't cultivate or proliferate seeds because of our short labor, so now we send a small number of seeds only to researchers. Most seeds have a low germinating rate because we haven't yet finished the germination test to all the seeds. The utilization of preserved seeds and genes have great possibilities in all fields such as medical care, social welfare and food, clothing and shelter. When you write a report using our seeds, please add that you utilize seeds from The Research Institute for Bioresources, Okayama University to it. Please give us new seeds when you succeed in cultivating and proliferating seeds we share. In addition, give us any information about a germination rate, etc.

We need a long period of time to complete this activity. We do thank you for your help.



Copyright (C) 1999-2005 Takashi Enomoto, All Rights Reserved.