Over 70 000 accessions of plants, belonging to the following groups: cereals, grasses, large seed legumes, small seed legumes, oil plants, industrial plants, vegetables, and medicinal plants, are currently stored in National Centre for Plant Genetic Resources: Polish Genebank.

The seeds are kept in temperature controlled chambers. There are three long-term storage chambers where the seeds are stored at a temperature of -18°C and five medium-term storage chambers where the temperature is 0°C. Theoretically, base collection can be stored even 2 000 years in hermetically sealed bags in aforementioned conditions.

The accessions which are used for distribution are an active collection. They are stored in hermetically sealed jars in medium-term storage chambers. The seeds can be kept that way around 30 years. The accessions are distributed to researchers, breeders and farmers all over the world. In order to get seed samples it is necessary to accept standard material transfer agreement.

Objectives:

• documenting genetic resources of crop plants and exchange of information,
• obtaining seed samples of crop plants from national and international breeding centers,
• seed viability testing of samples for long term preservation,
• preparation of seed samples for long term preservation,
• study of seed response after long term preservation,
• study of biochemical changes in seeds exposed to long term preservation,
• forwarding seed samples with low seed viability or with insufficient seed amount for regeneration,
• distribution of seed samples for breeding, research and education.