We conserve for the future

The most valuable and unique of what is growing in our country is to be conserved for the future. The aim is to make the assortment available for everyone, whether they wish to cultivate, research or just enjoy the variation in plants. Beautiful and hardy bulb plants, perennials with cultural heritage value, plentifully flowering shrub roses and Swedish asparagus are examples of plant groups that in a few years will be preserved in a national genebank. The genebank will consist of both a central collection and a series of local collections, or clone archives, spread around the country housing duplicates of the material for added security.

This type of collection is already in place for older fruit varieties. The collections include so called mandate varieties that are varieties of Swedish origin as well as foreign varieties with a very long tradition of cultivation in the country. The clone archives will be offered host other plant groups as well, depending on their interest and expertise. Those accepting responsibility for the collections must be knowledgeable and prepared to take on the tack for many years to come.

Genetic analysis DNA studies have helped to spread light on the genetic diversity of heritage plants. Several of the pea species which were collected have been shown to be genetically unique from any of the previously known pea varieties. Sweden's known pea diversity has instantly multiplied! Analyses have also shown that the roses 'Wrams Gunnarstorp' and 'Climbing American Beauty' are similar and perhaps even are the same variety, as are the apple varieties 'Spässerud' and 'Särsö'.

Selection for the national genebank

All plant material collected under the various POM projects is selected on the basis of a number of criteria. It can be a matter of physical characteristics which make them especially desirable for cultivation or otherwise unique, or a cultural or background story that merits that it is collected for evaluation.

All collected plants are placed for the first few years in temporary storage where they are compared with other varieties and evaluated. Here we try to screen out the unique and eliminate duplicates. To accomplish this we use both physical characteristics and genetic analysis. Modern DNA techniques provide effective tools to see if two very similar type of plants are the same or different. The national genebank of the future will house the most valuable cultivated diversity.

The future national genebank.

How can I get hold of these old varieties?

POM's first inventory project, the Call for Seeds, focused on collecting and documenting traditional herb and vegetable plants. All living material has now been handed over to the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre NordGen in Alnarp. The general public can request small seed samples to grow and propagate further. Research material of vegetative plant types will be available in the future, at minimal cost from the national genebank. Distribution of plant material is planned to commence in 2011. There will be the possibility for nurseries to propagate and sell plants from the national genebank. This will allow unique Swedish plants to be grown in many places around the country and thus we can protect them even better.