One of the main goals of the LIFE FOR SEEDS project is the establishment of the largest seed bank of wild plants in Slovenia. Last summer we got an advanced database and mobile application for entering and storing data on collected seeds, whereas this year seed gathering really took off!

By 20 Aug seeds of 332 species were collected from three target habitat types (intermittent lakes, dry orchid meadows, matgrass meadows), that occur on 21 Natura 2000 sites across Slovenia. Thus, we already exceeded the goal of 300 species, set in project application. We collected approximately 2600 seed samples (accessions), with species of dry orchid grasslands prevailing, e.g. erect brome Bromopsis erecta, kidney vetch Anthyllis vulneraria, mountain clover Trifolium montanum and green-winged orchid Orchis morio.

To make seed gathering more efficient, we organized 13 workshops with the help of a subcontractor, the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts – Jovan Hadži Institute of Biology, that were attended by partner staff and several volunteers. The latter will collect seeds individually in the upcoming years. Seed gathering was also the common thread of the first student research camp that took place in the middle of July.

The Agricultural Institute of Slovenia will now dry and clean the accessions, and pack them into alluminized bags for long-term storage at low temperature. Half of each accession will be stored at the Infrastructural Centre Jablje and the other half in Ormož Basins Nature Reserve, where basement was arranged to fit the purpose. In the following three years we aim to fulfill the second goal – enlarging the number of accessions to 12.000, thereby ensuring high genetic variability of stored seeds.