A PARCEL of heritage seeds that has travelled across south and central England to highlight the vital importance of saving, sharing and sowing seeds has found a home at the University of Warwick.
The Heritage Seed Library (HSL), based at Ryton charity Garden Organic, is celebrating 50 years of seed conservation this year with a unique ‘seed relay’ across the UK.
The seeds have travelled nearly 170 miles so far, and the UK Vegetable Genebank (UKVGB) at the University of Warwick’s Innovation Campus has agreed to help preserve these heritage varieties in their iced vaults.
Fifty years ago, the HSL’s founder Lawrence D Hills sent the first precious parcel of at-risk heritage seeds to the UKVGB for conservation – and five decades later they’re marking this special relationship at the UKVGB.
The HSL is the only living library of heritage vegetables in the UK, and the only seed library that conserves food by sharing heritage seeds with a range of volunteer seed guardians and library members.
By sharing and growing out the seeds with community partners across the UK, the seeds become much more resilient and better adapted to climate change and local conditions – safeguarding these precious seeds for future generations.
Over the last 50 years, the UKVB has been assisting the library by taking duplicates of its seeds as an insurance policy and freezing them in their cold vaults.
“We’re delighted to be involved in the relay to celebrate the wonderful work of the HSL and our collaboration which spans many years,” said UKVGB head Dr Charlotte Allender.
“UKVGB and the Heritage Seed Library have a shared history in the conservation and use of vegetable crop genetic diversity. We use complementary approaches to ensure historic diversity in crops is not lost, and assist the Heritage Seed Library by keeping samples of their collections backed up in our cold store.
“Diversity is the raw material used by plant breeders and ultimately by those growing crops on farms or in gardens – and making sure future generations have access to as much of the variation contained within old varieties is essential to ensure sustainable crop production.”
Handing over the golden seed packets to the UKVGB were Bob Sherman, former chief horticultural officer at Garden Organic, Garden Organic chief executive Fiona Taylor and seed officer Lucy Shepherd.
The UKVGB will take varieties of radish and carrot from the golden seed parcel and hold these in their vaults.
“A changing climate and decline in insects including pollinators is making our food security more precarious,” said CEO Fiona Taylor. “We need to conserve the widest variety of vegetable seeds as possible to ensure the survival of homegrown food crops. Add to this worldwide food shocks caused by pandemics, wars and disrupted trade routes and the urgent need to save our precious seed becomes a race against time.
“Our Heritage Seed Library holds the National Collection of Heritage Vegetables, and we have a duty to ensure that this precious natural resource is conserved for future generations. By passing seed on and sowing it in a variety of places, we are allowing it to survive and thrive.”
To help the Heritage Seed Library gardeners are encouraged to become members of Garden Organic and the Heritage Seed Library as this raises funds to ensure its work can continue.
Members also receive six free packets of heritage seeds from the newly launched annual Seed List. They can grow this seed in their own gardens and contribute to their future preservation by saving seed from these vegetables and passing them back to the library or to friends and family.
Visit gardenorganic.org.uk/join for further details.
