[Explanation] In the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Southwest Wildlife Germplasm Bank of China preserves a large number of wild plant seeds from home and abroad. It is currently the largest wild plant germplasm bank in Asia and the second largest in the world. Species of "Noah's Ark".
[Explanation] Recently, the reporter walked into the germplasm resource bank and learned that the preservation capacity of this place has reached the international leading level.
For more than ten years, rescue protection of China's important wild biological germplasm resources has been carried out.
[Concurrent] Cai Jie, Director of the Germplasm Collection Center of Wildlife Germplasm Bank of Southwest China
There are botanists all over the world, and they estimate that the rate of plant extinction is much higher than we thought.
In the past 300 years or so, 500 species of plants have been completely extinct, and they have been completely extinct in the wild.
So there are a lot of plants. Actually, we don’t know what they are for. They disappear. It’s actually a pity.
[Explanation] The reporter learned that the seeds collected by researchers from various places will be stored in a cold storage at minus 20 degrees Celsius after processing.
Here, normal seeds can be stored for 100-200 years and still have vigor.
During the preservation period, the seed will be tested for vigor every 10 years.
[Explanation] As of December 2019, the Wildlife Germplasm Bank of Southwest China has collected and preserved 23546 kinds of various germplasm resources including plant seeds, plant in vitro materials, plant DNA, animal cell lines, and microbial strains, totaling 248593 copies. /Plant/article.
Among them, there are 10,285 wild plant seeds, totally 82,746, accounting for 35.2% of the total number of seed plant species in China.
[Concurrent] Cai Jie, Director of the Germplasm Collection Center of Wildlife Germplasm Bank of Southwest China
We can say that in a very small space, we have stored tens of thousands of plant seeds.
And each of these seeds may become a healthy plant in the future, multiply and flourish again.
[Explanation] In addition to preserving the country's germplasm resources, the Southwest Wildlife Germplasm Bank of China has also helped countries such as the United Kingdom preserve their native species, playing the role of international "seed stocking".
[Concurrent] Cai Jie, Director of the Germplasm Collection Center of Wildlife Germplasm Bank of Southwest China
In the next step, we hope to be able to use these resources in various ways and use them to life. We say that we use these resources to revitalize them, so that the resources can be used by us and benefit our society.
Reporter Dao Zhinan from Kunming
Editor in charge: [Wang Kai]