Optimizing the accession-level quantity of seeds to put into storage to minimize seed (gene)bank regeneration or re-collection

Optimizing the accession-level quantity of seeds to put into storage to minimize seed (gene)bank regeneration or re-collection | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Optimizing the accession-level quantity of seeds to put into storage to minimize seed (gene)bank regeneration or re-collection Fiona R. Hay, Katherine J. Baum, Olaniyi Oyatomi, Dustin Wolkis This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4423771/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Seed (gene)banking is an effective way to conserve cultivated and wild plant diversity. However, long-term funding is not always consistently sufficient, and there is need to both strengthen the effectiveness of genebank operations and maximize cost-efficiency. One way to control the cost of maintaining a germplasm collection is to optimize the quantity of seeds per accession that is placed into storage, depending on the expected length of time a seed lot will remain above the viability threshold, expected rates of use for distribution and viability testing, and on the requirement to ensure a reserve for regeneration/re-collection. Here, we express this as an equation which can be adjusted to different scenarios, including to inform decisions about use of accessions of wild species where the number of seeds available is limited, a common scenario for wild species conservation seed banks. For many crop genebanks, given the expected longevity of seeds, it would be worthwhile to increase the number of seeds produced and processed for storage. This would also help to diminish the risk of genetic drift due to frequent cycles of regeneration but would have implications in terms of how accessions are regenerated, in particular, how many plants are used for regeneration and the size of storage facilities. The equation we present can also be rearranged and used to plan how to allocate seeds for testing and use when the number of seeds available is limited; this may have particular relevance for species conservation seed banks. Genebank management regeneration seed bank seed conservation seed multiplication seed storage Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4423771","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":306817072,"identity":"973410fb-d437-444e-bb2e-0663772a639a","order_by":0,"name":"Fiona R. Hay","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA7UlEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBAC9mYwdQDIaoALGuPVwnMYpoXnALFaDsC0SCQQq4Wd+diDHwx35A1uPn78uqKCQd7gAPNmA7xamNnSDXsYnhluuJ1mZnnmDIPhhgNsxQn4tNgz85hJ8DAcZtxwO8HMsLGNgXHDAR7jA/i08AC1SP5hOGy/4ebxbyAt9kRpkQbakrjhBo/xQ6CWRJAWvA4D+iVNWsbgcPLMMzlljA1nJJJnHmYrxu99/sPHJN9UHLbtO35888eGChsgo3mzBD4tEAA0VeEAAxtQJRAxE1YPAfINDMwfiFU8CkbBKBgFIwsAACPZSUq0sht0AAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"","institution":"Aarhus University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Fiona","middleName":"R.","lastName":"Hay","suffix":""},{"id":306817073,"identity":"7cd9c0c7-fe9c-4ffd-8538-72a992d5c8f6","order_by":1,"name":"Katherine J. Baum","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Australian Grains Genebank","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Katherine","middleName":"J.","lastName":"Baum","suffix":""},{"id":306817074,"identity":"4b14ef6d-e15e-4c5b-8ac7-bd252facb74f","order_by":2,"name":"Olaniyi Oyatomi","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"International Institute for Tropical Agriculture","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Olaniyi","middleName":"","lastName":"Oyatomi","suffix":""},{"id":306817075,"identity":"75b31e2d-a264-4ec6-a847-582981d773ff","order_by":3,"name":"Dustin Wolkis","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"National Tropical Botanical Garden","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Dustin","middleName":"","lastName":"Wolkis","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-05-15 08:37:38","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4423771/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4423771/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":61678697,"identity":"67c13f2f-2a92-4244-8360-aac57b68b1f0","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-08-02 23:31:42","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1157780,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"20240515Hayetal.OptimizingseedquantityMS.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4423771/v1_covered_03f6bab7-3a86-453f-be27-cf01c5c3c5b7.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Optimizing the accession-level quantity of seeds to put into storage to minimize seed (gene)bank regeneration or re-collection","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Genebank management, regeneration, seed bank, seed conservation, seed multiplication, seed storage","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4423771/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4423771/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eSeed (gene)banking is an effective way to conserve cultivated and wild plant diversity. However, long-term funding is not always consistently sufficient, and there is need to both strengthen the effectiveness of genebank operations and maximize cost-efficiency. One way to control the cost of maintaining a germplasm collection is to optimize the quantity of seeds per accession that is placed into storage, depending on the expected length of time a seed lot will remain above the viability threshold, expected rates of use for distribution and viability testing, and on the requirement to ensure a reserve for regeneration/re-collection. Here, we express this as an equation which can be adjusted to different scenarios, including to inform decisions about use of accessions of wild species where the number of seeds available is limited, a common scenario for wild species conservation seed banks. For many crop genebanks, given the expected longevity of seeds, it would be worthwhile to increase the number of seeds produced and processed for storage. This would also help to diminish the risk of genetic drift due to frequent cycles of regeneration but would have implications in terms of how accessions are regenerated, in particular, how many plants are used for regeneration and the size of storage facilities. The equation we present can also be rearranged and used to plan how to allocate seeds for testing and use when the number of seeds available is limited; this may have particular relevance for species conservation seed banks.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Optimizing the accession-level quantity of seeds to put into storage to minimize seed (gene)bank regeneration or re-collection","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2024-05-30 19:41:14","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4423771/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"527bfed3-31a8-454d-8eef-add45a30c868","owner":[],"postedDate":"May 30th, 2024","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2024-08-02T23:23:34+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2024-05-30 19:41:14","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-4423771","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-4423771","identity":"rs-4423771","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}