BioOne

As a world-class seed bank, it contributes to food security by collecting, classifying, multiplying, evaluating, informatizing, and distributing agricultural plant genetic resources.

It collects basic and vitality information to ensure the efficient use of stored wild plant seeds.

The Korea Arboreta and Gardens Institute, a public agency under the Korea Forest Service, operates national arboretums established according to climate and vegetation zones to conserve and utilize tree genetic resources, and was founded to contribute to the promotion of the garden industry and garden culture.
The Korea Arboreta and Gardens Institute, which opened in 2018, currently operates the Baekdudaegan National Arboretum for the conservation of forest genetic resources, and the Sejong National Arboretum, which specializes in forest genetic resource conservation and urban research in the temperate central region. In the future, it plans to open the National Botanic Garden of Korean Native Plants (NBGK) to conserve rare and endemic plants, the National Saemangeum Arboretum to conserve and utilize coastal forest genetic resources, the Korean garden culture institute to promote garden culture, and a practical garden material center.

The Baekdudaegan National Arboretum, located in Chunyang-myeon, Bonghwa-gun, Gyeongsangbuk-do, is an institution specialized in conserving Baekdudaegan forest biological resources and conducting plant utilization research, and has been studying wild plant seeds since 2017, gradually expanding its role.
It operates both the Baekdudaegan Global Seed Vault for long-term storage and the Wild Plant Seed Bank for utilization and storage purposes.
The Baekdudaegan Global Seed Vault is the world’s only underground tunnel-type permanent storage facility for wild plant seeds, created to protect plant genetic resources from global disasters such as natural calamities caused by climate change, wars, and nuclear explosions.
The Korea Arboreta and Gardens Institute not only preserves wild plant seeds collected by itself redundantly but also carries out redundant preservation of seeds held by domestic and international institutions.
The seeds are safely preserved in a tunnel over 40 meters underground, under conditions of -20℃ and relative humidity below 40%.

The Wild Plant Seed Bank consists of a medium-term storage facility (-20℃, RH 40%), a short-term storage facility (4℃, RH 30%), a seed sorting room, a packaging room, a post-maturation room, and two drying rooms, along with four laboratories: microscopy room, physiology laboratory, germination laboratory, and non-destructive testing laboratory.
This seed bank targets wild plants naturally growing throughout Korea, rather than crops, and also collects basic information such as seed morphology and germination data to enable efficient use of the stored seeds.