Seed bank

One is to preserve the genes that plant breeders need to increase yield, disease resistance, drought tolerance, nutritional quality, taste, etc.

Another is to forestall loss of genetic diversity in rare or imperiled plant species in an effort to conserve biodiversity ex situ.

Many plants that were used centuries ago by humans are used less frequently now; seed banks offer a way to preserve that historical and cultural value.

[citation needed] These alternative "living" collections can be damaged by natural disasters, outbreaks of disease, or war.

[citation needed] Seeds are living plants and keeping them viable over the long term requires adjusting storage moisture and temperature appropriately.

Seeds from species considered most important – corn, wheat, rice, soybean, pea, tomato, broccoli, melon, sunflower, etc.

Seeds of citrus fruits, coffee, avocado, cocoa, coconut, papaya, oak, walnut and willow are a few examples of species that should be preserved cryogenically.

[6][7] Parzies' finding has since been taken seriously by banks around the world and has sparked further verification – regeneration is widely recognized to not preserve diversity perfectly.

Comparison tables of seed density and diversity are presented for the boreal and deciduous forest types and the research that has been conducted is discussed.

[10] In February 2012, Russian scientists announced they had regenerated a narrow leaf campion (Silene stenophylla) from a 32,000-year-old seed.

[11] Conservation efforts such as seed banks are expected to play a greater role as climate change progresses.

[31] In Zoroastrian mythology, Ahura Mazda instructed Yima, a legendary king of ancient Persia, to build an underground structure called a Vara to store two seeds from every kind of plant in the known world.

[32] Some scholars have suggested that the Norse equivalent of this myth is the underground garden Odainsaker, which was intended to withstand the three-year fimbul winter preceding Ragnarok, to protect the people (and seemingly the plants) that would repopulate the world after this event.