If avocados become toast, Kew can ride to their rescue

SCIENTISTS at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew seed bank are developing cryogenic techniques to help preserve avocados for generations to come.

The Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) has the biggest and most genetically diverse collection of wild plants in the world, kept at freezing temperatures to ensure their survival.

But about 8 per cent of the world’s plant species cannot be preserved this way, including oak trees and fruits such as avocados and mangos.

Researchers at Kew are developing cryo-preservation techniques that could be used to preserve these species which cannot survive the drying that typically happens before freezing.

While typical seed bank freezing stores samples at -20C, cryo-preservation techniques use liquid nitrogen to freeze seed embryos at -196C.

Although not currently threatened, scientists say changing weather patterns could disrupt the growing seasons of avocados.

Scientists at Kew said this week that two fifths of all plants were threatened with extinction in the wild.

Dr Kate Hardwick, conservation coordinator, said: “That shows us just how big of a crisis we are facing in terms of biodiversity loss, driven very much by habitat loss and climate change.”

Cryo-preservation techniques could also preserve the longevity of some fragile wild species, such as orchids.

Several orchid species were among those to enter Kew’s MSB this week, as it marked banking more than 40,000 individual species of wild plants.

Dr Elinor Breman, its senior research leader, said: “The path towards banking 40,000 individual species has been both challenging and rewarding. Conserving seeds is about increasing the

‘Path towards banking 40,000 individual species has been both challenging and rewarding’

genetic diversity of the collections and unlocking their potential to solve some of the biggest challenges we face today, from biodiversity loss to food security to climate change.”

The facility, which holds the Guinness World Records title as largest seed bank, stores 98,567 seed collections sourced from 190 countries.

Sir David Attenborough has said the MSB is “perhaps the most significant conservation initiative ever”, saving plants on the brink of extinction.