Silesian Botanical Garden : a proposal for agriculture and forestry

Abstract

The Red List of endangered plant and anima] species has been enlarging alarmingly. Predictions are serious: within next twenty years about 20% of the world species will extinct. ln our industrial region almost 40% of vascular plant species is about to die out. For the past two hundred years 124 species of these plants have died out completely or vanished of the area of Poland. These are dramatic changes in agricultural methods that are responsible for this genetic erosion. First of all we are obliged to conserve biodiversity, not only in the natural environment, but also in agrocenoses. Another important task is to conserve gene recourses of the crops in order to provide a materiał for new varieties cultivation. One of the methods of gene recourses con­servation in a botanical gardens is the ex situ method meaning conservation of the genetic materiał of plants out of their natura] habitats. The ex situ conservation may be localized in: • seed storage, • in vitro tissues storage, • pollen storage, • field collections.