Gene banks

Gene banks are a type of biorepository which preserve genetic material.

• In plants, this could be by freezing cuts from the plant, or stocking the seeds.
•  In animals, this is the freezing of sperm and eggs in zoological freezers until further need.
• With corals, fragments are taken which are stored in water tanks under controlled conditions.

In plants, it is possible to unfreeze the material and propagate it,

• however, in animals, a living female is required for artificial insemination. While it is often difficult to utilize frozen animal sperm and eggs, there are many examples of it being done successfully.

In an effort to conserve agricultural biodiversity,

•  gene banks are used to store and conserve the plant genetic resources of major crop plants and their crop wild relatives.
• There are many gene banks all over the world, with the Svalbard Global Seed Vault  ( located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen  being probably the most famous one.

Types of gene banks

 Seed bank

The seed bank preserves dried seeds by storing them at a very low temperature. Spores and pteridophytes are conserved in seed banks, but other seedless plants, such as tubercrops cannot be preserved this way.
 The largest seed bank in world is the International Rice Research Institute in Manila.

 Tissue bank

In this technique buds, protocorm and meristematic cells are conserved through particular light and temperature arrangements in a nutrient medium. This technique is used to preserve seedless plants and plants which reproduce asexually.

 Cryobank

In this technique, a seed or embryo is preserved at very low temperatures. It is usually preserved in liquid nitrogen at 196°C. This is helpful for the conservation of species facing extinction.^[2]

 Pollen bank

This is a method in which pollen grains are stored. We can make plants which are facing extinction in the present world. Using this technique, we can make plants with one set chromosome.

 Field gene bank

it is a method of planting plants for the conservation of gene.for this purpose we construct ecosystem artificially.through this method we can compare the difference among plants of different species and can study it in detail.it needs more land,adequate soil,weather etc..Germ plasm of important crops are conserved through this method.42,000 varieties of rice are conserved in the Central Rice Research Institute in Orissa.