Australia’s genebanks are only suffering neglect. Russia’s Pavlovsk field genebank, 90 years old and containing Europe’s largest collection of fruits and berries, may be about to go under a developer’s bulldozers.
During the winter seige of Leningrad by German forces in 1942, the Russian scientists staffing Pavlovsk starved to death surrounded by 187,000 varieties of rice, nuts, and fruit and berry seeds, rather than eat their collections.
Now the 500 hectare station is threatened with sale to a developer, who plans to cover it with cottages for St Petersburg’s burgeoning middle class.
The outcry from crop diversity specialists around the world has made Russian President Dmitry Medvedev put a temporary stay of execution on Pavlovsk’s sale.
He has given “the instruction for this issue to be scrutinised”, the President’s Twitter feed said last week.
Pavlovsk’s supporters say that even if it were possible, it would take years to move the collection.
The fight for the field station is occurring through the worst drought in recorded history - the sort of extreme event that, if it begins to repeat under climate change, can only be adequately responded to from gene banks like Pavlovsk.
Australia’s Plant Genetic Resource Collections (PGRCs)
- Australi an Winter Cereals Collection, Tamworth - 54,000 accessions of wheat, barley and oats.
- Australian Temperate Field Crops Collection, Horsham - 34,000 accessions, including collections of brassicas and legumes that are among the world’s largest.
- Australian Tropical Crops and Forages Collection, Biloela - 39,000 accessions from more than 1500 tropical crop and forage species.
- Australian Medicago Genetic Resource Centre, Adelaide - the world’s largest collection of medics, plus other temperate pasture legume species.
- Australian Trifolium Genetic Resource Centre, Perth - world’s largest collection of subterranean clover.
- Australian Indigenous Relatives of Crops Collection, Canberra
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