Conservation of biodiversity: China archived plant seeds News

The Chinese economic growth is also at the expense of the environment. To conserve the biodiversity for posterity, is cataloged in Hangzhou seed and stored.

Steffen root, ARD Studio in Shanghai

The Hotel flora archive is not accessible to the public. Only rare visitors. The rooms are completed, a researcher must first find the key for the archive and drying rooms. In the three different rooms, different terms and conditions, explained to employees, Qian Jiangbo, while he stands in front of a large dark Box, from which the temperature and humidity controlled.

On a small Display here the values to monitor. "This is a reference to our double-a 15-room, where the short-term storage space, and this value here is on the long-term cooling chamber. In the double-15-room-15 degrees is supposed to be at 15 per cent humidity, Mr, Qian. "This is the ideal environment to dry plant seeds quickly but gently. For the second area, the Display shows 3.5 degrees Celsius, in the long-term cooling chamber, it is minus 14 degrees Celsius cold."

15 degrees Celsius and 15 percent humidity, the plants seeds are dried.

extinction

have Now found the key under threat. Chen Chuan opens a door that looks a bit like the oversized door of an old-fashioned refrigerator. This is the drying room, explained the botanist. The first stop for seeds, which are kept here in Hangzhou. "The Drying takes around a week, some seeds need to be longer. For some, it lasts for a whole month. After Drying, we check the moisture in the seeds. As soon as we measure a moisture level of below 15 per cent, will be archived in the seeds."

to see there's not Much in the drying room at the Moment, the shelves are almost empty. The changes in the two cooling chambers. Here the shelves are filled already. Chen brings some jam-jar-like containers from the shelves, and it ranks side by side on a stainless steel tray. The jars are each filled to a third with differently shaped seeds in various colors. Of grey on black up to bright red. "The seeds of a special palm tree from Eastern China", says the botanist. "The Plant is threatened with extinction."

Also of the seeds of already endangered species are preserved here.

the protection of the UNESCO world heritage

at The time are stored in the shelves on the grounds of the Botanical garden of Hangzhou, the seeds from almost one thousand different species of plants. Based on the huge diversity of species in the Region that is not much. But the archive will continue to grow. The science of learning to be a botanist it is especially to plants from the northeast of China.

The Wuyi mountains, the Yellow mountains and the Tianmu Region, for example, are mountains of considerable resources with a comprehensive plant world. Many of the tree and plant species are endemic, occur only here. Although the species are upland regions in Eastern China under the protection of national and international programs - and some of them belong to the UNESCO world heritage - nevertheless, more and more species are threatened, explained Yang Jun from the Agricultural University of Anhui in Hefei city:

"Our environment, the nature changed and is changing. Some species will become extinct in the course of this change. If we start now, to preserve seeds of plants, we will be able to use them in the future. The Bio-diversity is a good thing."

The stock to be more emphasized

grow "A plant can be the economic-social fabric of a Region as a whole is crucial", a botanist. "There may be out there a way that we think would be useful. Maybe you will be but in the future it is important for us. An example of rice, the staple food of China. Today, our rice was cultivated from wild plants. These varieties were extinct before they were discovered and used, there would be no rice."

biodiversity is as big as the country

Together with colleagues and botany students from Hangzhou Researcher Chen will go in the next few weeks, again on a field trip to collect new seeds, and archiving them afterwards. "In good weather, in spring and in autumn, we go out every day. In part, we remain one to two weeks in the mountains. Sometimes, if we are looking for very special seeds, we take tents or in mountain villages. Or we stay in old, abandoned Buddhist monasteries."

only in the East China Hangzhou, are collected in China plant seeds. Also in Kunming, in the South of the country, in the province of Yunnan, a corresponding archive. It is the largest in the country. Yang Jun from the agriculture University of Anhui: "China is large and stretches across many degrees of latitude from North to South, from Heilongjiang to Hainan. Accordingly, our biodiversity is. It would be even better so, if in Hangzhou, in the future, not only samples from East China were collected, but from all over the country."

China archived plant seeds
Steffen root, ARD Shanghai
05.05.2019 10:43 PM

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