The FAO’s Practical Guide

FAO has developed a series of ‘Practical Guides’ to be used as companion volumes to the Genebank Standards. Here, we are focusing on the ‘Practical Guide for the Conservation of orthodox seeds in seed genebanks’, rather than the separate guides which exist for conservation in field genebanks and in vitro culture.

In the Practical Guide, the steps in a genebank’s workflows are broken down into a logical sequence. At each stage, guidance is given on the decisions involved. The Practical Guide gives summary charts for the respective action steps, and can be used as a handbook for routine genebank operations by genebank technicians carrying out their day-to-day activities. It can also be used by genebanks as a basis for developing standard operating procedures and quality management systems.

With so many resources available, you may be wondering what extra you will learn on this course. The answer is that this course will provide you with guidance on questions about ‘why’ a particular approach will work on a particular species, rather than ‘how’ to follow procedures. This will empower you to make informed decisions and ultimately, perhaps, contribute to the science of seed conservation, which underpins the future evolution of the Genebank Standards.