How To Bank Seeds

Science & Conservation

Dustin Wolkis

Seed Bank Curator and Laboratory Manager

Seed Bank Curator and Laboratory Manager Dustin Wolkis is responsible for curating NTBGs seed bank and conducting seed conservation research. Dustin holds an MSc in Plant Biology and Conservation from Arizona State University and is currently pursuing a PhD degree at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, focused on changing the seed banking paradigm using Hawaiian lobeliads as a model system. Dustin is also Deputy Chair of the IUCN SSC Seed Conservation Specialist Group.

Jena Osmani, MSc

Seed Bank & Laboratory Technician

Jena Osmani comes to NTBG after defending her MSc in 2023 in Environmental Horticulture at University of Florida. This Florida native studied seed production and post-harvest drying treatments in culturally important crop and ecologically important wild species. For the last year Jena has been studying fruit production and pre-sowing treatments in saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) where she employed the use of tissue culture to enhance commercial production. Jena will be working in the Seed Bank & Laboratory studying ex situ seed, pollen, and spore conservation. She looks forward to bringing her unique skill set to aid in the conservation of Hawaiʻi’s imperiled plant species.

NTBG’s field botanists are collecting seeds of rare and endangered plants for conservation in our seed bank and propagation into our living collections or planting back into nature.

All seed collections are recorded in our databases, so we always know where any collection came from. It is important to collect the seeds at the right time when they are fully developed and ready to disperse.

Before seeds can be stored in the seed bank they need to be cleaned from fruit, a laborious work that take many hours for our dedicated volunteers.

To enable long-term storage seeds are kept at -18°C degrees. However, seed storage behavior and longevity varies greatly among and within species and understanding of seed behavior is critical for successful seed banking and conservation. NTBG conducts research and develops specific protocols ensuring optimal conditions for each of the over 500 species currently in the seed bank.

Once the seeds can be safely stored, it is critical to conduct viability studies to follow the germination success over time and know when seeds need to be propagated and resampled or new collections need to be made if possible. For each collection or accession, small samples are tested at regular intervals of 0, 1, 2, 5, 10 and every ten years after. The goal is for all seed collections to have at least 70% of their initial viability. All these data from over 30 years of seed banking can also be used to understand general trends and better prediction of storage behavior and viability of species where little is known. NTBGs seed work is planting new seeds of hope for Hawaii’s many rare and endangered plants.

Our Collections

Living Collections

Herbarium

Library

Botanical Research Center

Seed Bank & Lab

DNA Tissue Bank

To learn more about our collections browse these pages. Some of our underlying databases are public. Access to the herbarium and library collections in the Juliet Rice Wichman Botanical Research Center for scientific or education purposes can be arranged. See contact information under each collection.

Public tours of NTBGs five gardens can be booked online. The Behind the Scenes tour, South Shore Kauai includes the nursery and botanical research center.