The International Seed Vault in Norway Has Been Enriched with a New Batch of Seeds from NGBR in Sadovo

At the end of April, a new batch of seeds from old Bulgarian varieties of cereal and vegetable crops was sent for storage in the international seed vault located on the Svalbard archipelago in Norway, referred to as the new Noah's Ark, according to a report by the BNT program „100% Awake“.

The valuable materials come from the Institute of Plant Genetic Resources (IPGR) „Konstantin Malkov“ in Sadovo at the Agricultural Academy. Their number is nearly 700,000 seeds. In Svalbard, the seeds were handed over by the Bulgarian Ambassador to Norway, Vera Shatilova.

„We prepared about 1,100 Bulgarian accessions, including old tomato varieties and old wheat varieties. About 90% of these seeds are of Bulgarian origin,“ explains to the BNT camera Assoc. Prof. Dr. Katya Uzundzhalieva, Director of the Institute of Plant Genetic Resources „Konstantin Malkov“ in Sadovo.

The international genebank was established for the storage of seeds from all over the world. In a facility located at a depth of 120 meters and protected by armored doors, millions of accessions are preserved. The site was chosen because „this island is always under glaciation conditions and, which is also very important, the seismic activity there is almost zero,“ clarifies Assoc. Prof. Uzundzhalieva. The task of the vault is to preserve plant diversity in the event of a global disaster. According to the Director of IPGR – Sadovo, „in the event of any natural cataclysms, caused by humans, which would lead to the destruction of biological diversity, the seeds will be taken out from it and will be restored by the next generations.“

Where the plant genetic reserve of the planet is stored

The National Genebank was established at the Institute of Plant Genetic Resources „Konstantin Malkov“ in Sadovo in 1984. It maintains over 60,000 accessions, of which nearly 45,000 under long-term storage conditions. In the long-term storage chamber, the seeds are stored at minus 18°C. The oldest seeds kept in the National Genebank date back to 1956. „Periodically, every 10 years, testing is carried out on the seeds in our base collection,“ explains Dimka Davcheva, agronomist at IPGR – Sadovo. For the BNT report, the research unit demonstrates a test of barley seeds stored since 1986. After 36 years of storage in the National Genebank, they have managed to preserve their viability.

The plant genebank of Bulgaria ranks third in the world in terms of richness of wheat accessions, after those of Russia and Germany.

You can watch the report from IPGR „Konstantin Malkov“ - Sadovo in the video of the BNT program „100% Awake“