Germplasm Bank

A plant germplasm bank is a collection of living material, in the form of seeds, spores, tissues, DNA, pollen, or any identity that could serve to reproduce a plant. The collection is stored under special conditions to ensure its survival for long periods of time.

The Botanical Garden of Sóller Plant Germplasm Bank (BGVIB) was created in 1989 as a fundamental instrument for the ex situ conservation of Balearic flora and the creation of the future Sóller Botanical Garden, which would open its doors three years later.

The objective of the BGVIB is the long-term conservation of endemic, rare, and threatened species of our flora to protect them and simultaneously study, document, and make them accessible for both research and in situ conservation tasks.

Two important collections are currently preserved: the collection of seeds from wild flora of the Balearic Islands, which simultaneously collects other taxa of biogeographic and ethnobotanical interest from the Mediterranean; and the collection of seeds from traditional varieties of the Balearic Islands.

Technically, the most important advantage of the seed bank for species preservation is undoubtedly the small space these seeds occupy, compared to the space we would need to preserve them as living plants. Each seed has a different genetic constitution, and therefore a single seed sample can store a varied and extensive genetic heritage of the species in question. We must think that each stored seed is a potential individual.

In the national context, the BGVIB was the fourth to be established, and is part of the Spanish Network of Germplasm Banks of Wild Plants and Native Phytoresources (REDBAG), within the Spanish section of the Ibero-Macaronesian Association of Botanical Gardens (AIMJB).

In the international context, the BGVIB is also a founder of the European Network for the Conservation of Wild Species Seeds, ENSCONET, a network coordinated by the Millennium Seed Bank of Kew Botanical Garden, London.

All of this invites us to reflect on the importance of these centers, as the conservation or disappearance of many threatened species often depends on them.

Annually, we prepare a seed catalog that we offer to botanical gardens worldwide, with the intention of establishing a free and unrestricted exchange. This catalog, called Index Seminum, we offer jointly with the institutions that are part of the AIMJB.