Ignore the long names and awkward acronyms for a moment. Picture a huge building, the size of a big-box store. Picture one entire floor with seemingly endless numbers of racks reaching a 20 foot tall ceiling, not unlike the racks in a Home Depot store. Now picture that entire floor refrigerated to -18 ºC and the racks filled with millions of seed collections in sealed containers. Now go down several flights of stairs to the basement. Picture a well–lit open parking garage. Now picture this area filled with huge tanks containing seed and plant tissues frozen in liquid nitrogen at -196 ºC. Add in laboratories and offices in the remainder of the building and you have a picture of the amazing facilities at the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP) in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The mission of the NCGRP is to acquire, evaluate, preserve, and provide a national collection of genetic resources to secure the biological diversity that underpins a sustainable U.S. agricultural economy. As part of their mission they are preserving seeds of rare and endangered plant species for a number of organizations, including New England Wild Flower Society as part of the National Collection of the Center for Plant Conservation (CPC).

The mission of the CPC, a network of 36 leading botanic institutions, is to conserve and restore the imperiled native plants of the United States to secure them from extinction. Founded in 1984, the CPC operates the only coordinated national program of off-site (ex situ) conservation of rare plant material. This conservation collection ensures that material is available for restoration and recovery efforts for these species.

The CPC held its annual meeting at the NCGRP April 6 and 7, 2011. Prior to the meeting, a one-day workshop on conservation of germplasm was presented by Dr. Christina Walters and other staff. The workshop included sessions on principles of seed cryopreservation, fern spore and pollen preservation, preservation of dormant buds and vegetative shoot tips, as well as demonstrations of the various techniques for germination testing. In one particularly satisfying session entitled “Fun with Liquid Nitrogen,” we made ice cream in approximately five minutes.

The workshop and the meeting provided much new information that we can apply to the Society’s own conservation program and the seed bank at Nasami Farm, Whately, MA. While not quite as grand as those in Ft. Collins, our own facilities, funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation, apply the same standards set by the NCGRP for seed preservation. These include a seed drying room and a special freezer for seed storage.

Our hope is to increase our collections of rare and endangered plants in New England and eventually add collections of common New England plants for restoration of habitats. We currently have over 400 collections of over 215 species in our seed bank. The Society has used seeds from its collection in restoring Robbins cinquefoil (Potentilla robbinsiana) and Jesup’s milk-vetch (Astragalus robbinsii var. jesupii) in New England.