Nottingham Trent University becomes seed guardian

16:20 19th January 2010

Nottingham Trent University has become the first university to sign up to the Garden Organic Heritage Seed Library (HSL) programme as a seed guardian.

The English educational establishment joins around 300 other members of the scheme, including individual garden and greenhouse enthusiasts, prisons and other organisations, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) reported.

It aims to grow heritage varieties of vegetables and collect their seeds for redistribution through the HSL catalogue.

The university will use its walled garden to help Garden Organic in its quest to repopulate the UK with a number of old and endangered varieties by helping to keep a regular supply of seeds available for garden and greenhouse growers.

HSL head Neil Munro encouraged other universities and organisations to join up to the scheme.

"About 40,000 packets of seed - that's 40 per cent of what goes in our catalogue - are provided by seed guardians. We couldn't manage without them," he told the RHS.

Meanwhile, the RHS has revealed that the recent Tree O'Clock world record attempt fell short, by around 150,000 trees.