SGI, based at Austin Peay State University and part of the Center of Excellence for Field Biology, is in the early stages of developing a seed bank to serve the broader Mid-South region, especially for grassland species.
APSU Teaching and Research Garden
While our partners to the east, west, and south have been doing excellent work for many years, no seed bank exists that covers Tennessee, Kentucky, and large parts of other regions of the Mid-South. This is about to change. Thanks to recent funding from Google and now thanks to a grant from the Garden Club of Nashville, work on this project will begin in 2020.
Congratulations to Cooper Breeden, who will lead development of the seed bank. As SGI's Plant Conservation Coordinator (and coordinator for the Tennessee Plant Conservation Alliance), he led the charge on submitting a grant to the Garden Club of Nashville, to whom we are deeply grateful for their recent approval of funding. The Garden Club funds will be used in combination with support from Google and funds pledged by Dr. Karen Meisch, Dean of the College of STEM here at APSU, to help create the seed bank facility.
Speaking of space, SGI is deeply appreciative of APSU President Alisa White and the senior administration for dedicating approx. 8,000 sq ft of space to SGI that as of late December was formally dedicated to SGI. We are also grateful for the excellent advice that Dr. Cary Fowler, former executive director of the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway, is providing as well as his assistance in connecting us with seed bank experts around the world.
2020 will be an exciting time as we initiate the seed bank, focusing at first on rare grassland species. This will make an important addition to our APSU Herbarium, which in 2019 surpassed the 100,000 specimen mark and is now pushing toward 120,000 specimens. These achievements are thanks to funding by NSF and leadership by Mason Brock, our Herbarium Collections Manager.
These developments complement our APSU Teaching and Research Garden (pictured above), which includes more than 3,000 sq ft of space and contains 330 native plant species, some of which will be targeted for seed collection for conservation projects.
These are great things for biodiversity conservation, our university, and our young organization!