Gene Bank of the Slovak Republic (hereinafter SR), that was established in year 1996 provides principal task at conservation of seed species of the plants. The Gene Bank is specific technical institution for medium-term and long-term storage of the seeds in vital state. Gene Bank of the SR in compliance with aims and needs of National Programme on Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture for years 2015 - 2019 ensures monitoring, accumulation, evaluation, study, identification and long-term conservation of gene pools of the all agriculture crops.
Gene bank of the SR provides and practises realization of the tasks resulting from National Programme (NP), and the law No. 215/2001 on Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and Regulation No. 238/2006 with co-operation other 20 institutes from around the country where represented 22 152 accessions.
The task solution of the National Programme can resume into following items: a) gathering and evaluation of biodiversity of original domestic gene pool of Slovakia; b) conservation of seed accessions in individual ex situ collections, in vitro and field collections; c) acquisition of rare foreign genotypes into the collection of NP; d) creation of passport and descriptive databases; e) participation in international co-operation; f) education and edification; g) offering biological material for breeding, research, study purposes and for exchange to other gene banks.
Seed accessions in the Gene bank of the SR are maintained in the base collection and in the active collection. In the base collection are the samples of seed storied at -17°C like long-term seed storage on 50 years or longer, it depend on the seed viability. In the active collection are storage sample maintained at temperature 0°C till 4°C. From the safety reason the most important accessions are maintained like safety duplicate collection in the gene bank Crop Research Institute Prague - Ruzyne, Czech Republic. The Gene bank of the SR at the active collection storages 18 268 accessions, at base collection 3 884 accessions and at safety collection in Czech Republic 3 884 accessions of seed by December 31st 2015.
The Gene bank of the SR cooperated with other gene banks on the world, mainly in the bilateral exchange of the seeds for research and breeding reason. The Slovak Republic as a member of the Bioversity International Rome participates in the activities of the European Cooperative Programme for Genetic Resources (ECPGR). The main field of our international activities is realized in the working groups and networks ECPGR. The SR is represented in the working groups: Avena, Barley, Forages, Grain Legumes, Malus/Pyrus, MAP, Potato, Prunus, Wheat, Vitis.
The results obtained on Plant Genetic Resources are published and given to the skilled public, other research institutes, universities, and workplaces of environmental branch.
URL Address Genetic Resources Information System of Slovakia:http://griss.vurv.sk/
URL Address film: Mendel, Vavilov a Brno