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                                                                                                                                                  Storing seeds using traditional farming practices

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Mountainous regions especially within the state of Uttarakhand are marked by water scarcity with regards to the irrigational need of crops. Coupled with the changing climate that has harshly affected both the rainfall pattern and the amount of rain, seeds that can survive even under stressed rainfall spells are exactly what farmers hope for. As such whenever there is any batch of crops that the farmers come across which survived the brunt of low and erratic rainfall the protection and conservation of its gene pool becomes of utmost importance. A seed bank again comes in handy as it provides the right storage environment and a place where such resilient seeds can be kept to be kept in a dormant state, planted in the next sowing season or distributed within the community in hopes of helping fellow farmers.

                                                                                                                                               Seed distribution to fellow farmers

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The seed bank presently has 30 varieties of paddy, 3 varieties of finger millets (such as golmandwa, nangchunimandwa, jhumkiyagarhwaimandwa), 3 varieties of wheat, 2 varieties of amaranth (kala chua and safedchua), 2 varieties of lentil, 2 varieties of horse gram, of foxtail millet andof barnyard millet. The seed bank also houses black soya bean, buckwheat, mustard, maize, rice bean, kidney bean (rajma), sesame, bottle gourd, pumpkin, cucumber, beans, cowpea, pea, black gram, barley.

                                                                                                                                                               Different varieties of seeds in the seed bank

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Apart from these the bank also stores draught resistant crop varieties like moth beans, dudh-dhan(a type of paddy) and seeds of endangered plant species like that of perilla, flax (linseed), daulatkhani gehu (a variety of wheat).

                                                                                                                                                                      Board of the Seed Bank

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