• Students
  • Practical activities
  • In situ and ex situ plant conservation
  • In situ and ex situ plant conservation

    Basic info

    Professor: Francesca Meloni

    Responsible: Francesca Meloni (heipladi.erasmusplusunica@gmail.com)

    Duration: 5 days

    Period: May 7-11, 2018

    Go to the course.

    Learning objectives

    The training will be focussed on practical activities on the hole process of the genetic material that enter in the seedbank: cleaning, weighting, drying, packaging and storing, applying consolidated international protocols in order to maintain the viability of the collected material. Research experiments on propagation protocols will be carried out, in order to obtain information on germination requirements of the targeted plant species. For each plant species, under laboratory conditions, there will be examination of: seed dormancy type, seed dormancy release treatments, effect of light and temperature on germination.

    Credits

    • Credit 1: Laboratory exercises on seed sample cleaning, checking seed quality and quantity.
    • Credit 2: Practical course on seed drying, equilibrium relative humidity (eRH) and seed water content monitoring.
    • Credit 3: Exercises on germination (including basic methods of seed germination); common dormancy breaking methods and other viability tests (tetrazolium test).
    • Credit 4: Methods of packaging and long-term seed storage methods (standard and cryopreservation) and sample regeneration methods.