Seeds of success: A national seed banking program working to achieve long-term conservation goals

Abstract

Seeds of Success (SOS) is a national native seed collection program, led by the US Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management in partnership with numerous federal agencies and nonfederal organizations. The mission of the SOS is to collect wildland native seed for long-term germplasm conservation and for use in seed research, development of native plant materials, and ecosystem restoration. Each year about 50 SOS teams are stationed across the United States to make seed collections following a single technical protocol. SOS collections are divided into a long-term conservation storage collection, which is stored at multiple USDA Agricultural Research Service seed storage facilities, and a working collection, which is stored at partner institutions and made available for research. In addition to collecting and banking native species for future uses, SOS provides seed that can be increased to provide genetically appropriate plant materials for ecological restoration of disturbed lands. Seed collection is an efficient and cost-effective method for conserving the diversity of plant species into the future. Partners located throughout the United States are critical to the success of this program.