As regards the number of deposited seed accessions, 2018 has been a successful year for the Seed Vault. In total 30 gene banks and institutes deposited 92,638 seed samples during 2018, which is the largest number since 2011. So far, 76 institutes have deposited seeds in the Vault and current holdings by the end of 2018 are 983,524 accessions. As operator of the Seed Vault, NordGen envisages an active year also in 2018.
Three regular Seed Vault openings
NordGen will organize three regular Seed Vault openings for receiving seeds in 2019;
- – Week 13 (24.-28. March)
- – Week 23 (3.-6. June)
- – Week 43 (21.-25. October)
Current and new institutes and gene banks are invited to plan for shipping seeds at these occasions. Guidelines for being a Seed Vault depositor can be found on this webpage. First step after having a signed depositor agreement in place is to prepare an accession list, which should be submitted to NordGen for validation six week before Opening dates. Guidelines for completing the accession list here.
After bringing the seeds to Svalbard and into the Seed Vault, the Seed Portal, showing all details about deposited seeds, institutes and crops is updated.