Russian Housing Plan Threatens Seed Bank
23 August 2010
Plant scientist Svetlana Arbuzova weeds at the Pavlovsk Agricultural Station in Pavlovsk, near St.Petersburg, Russia
This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
Russia's Pavlovsk Experimental Station houses one of the oldest seed and plant collections in the world. But this month a court agreed to let the Russian Housing Development Foundation take control of the land.
The Russian government established the foundation in two thousand eight. The foundation wants to build housing on the land near Saint Petersburg that the collection now occupies.
Russian officials could still decide to rescue the station. If not, it could be gone within months.
The station would not be at all easy to move, even if enough land could be found quickly. Most of the collection grows in the ground. Agricultural specialists say trying to transplant it would take years.
The Pavlovsk Experimental Station is part of the N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry. The institute already existed as a research center when plant scientist Nikolai Vavilov reorganized it in the nineteen twenties. The institute was named in his honor in nineteen thirty.
The experimental station includes plants that are not found in any other seed bank. It also has Europe's largest field bank for fruits and berries. More than one hundred varieties each of raspberries and gooseberries grow on its many hectares.
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