George Hulbert Seed Vault to protect and provide the world’s rice seed stock for up to 100 years

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A ‘seed vault’ in southern New South Wales is playing a vital role in protecting the nation’s agricultural heritage. It is preserving seeds and grains for up to 100 years, and its work is gaining international attention.

Transcript

00:00After years of safekeeping, thousands of rice species are finally getting their forever

00:07home.

00:08We hold rice varieties in there that are unique and we know are held nowhere else in the world.

00:13Almost all of Australia's rice is grown in southern NSW.

00:17And this seed vault in Wagga Wagga holds the full diversity of the nation's rice.

00:22They were the first rice varieties grown commercially here in NSW.

00:27The vault is set up to protect and store seeds for 100 years and the collection contains

00:32varieties from around the world.

00:35We were contacted by rice breeders from Hungary who were looking for varieties lost after

00:42the collapse of the Soviet Union.

00:43We were able to assure them that yes, we did have their national heritage.

00:50Many of the varieties here predate the introduction of high yielding crop varieties, what's known

00:55as the green revolution.

00:56And there's hope they can help solve modern issues affecting the agriculture industry.

01:01They might be genes that help rice adapt to climate change.

01:05The vault is set up to be like a library, so seeds can be grown, borrowed, used and

01:10replenished.

01:11You don't want to have a library where the books sit on the shelf.

01:14For those at the Australian Plant Bank in Sydney South, saving seeds is an investment.

01:20Our valuable things are our seeds, so we deposit them in our seed bank and then we withdraw

01:25them when we need to for the future.

01:27The nearby herbarium has collected more than a million plant specimens, helping connect

01:32visitors with flora preservation.

01:35We can really kind of get excited about saving a rare species of animal, but we sort of forget

01:41that a rare species of plant can be just as exciting.

01:44For those building the Wagga Wagga Vault, its importance became more clear over time.

01:50This is 1910 rice heritage, like this is sleepless nights, worrying to make sure it

01:57all works.

01:58It's history, what more could you want to be a part of, it's just bread.

02:02A long past, and hopefully future, for these tiny grains of rice.

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