Seed storage

The Tree Seed Centre is responsible for long-term seed storage and maintenance of optimum physical quality of the seeds under the Chief Forester's Standards for Seed use. The Tree Seed Centre operates three freezer vaults that are maintained at -18°C. These freezers have daily system inspections, a security system, and are supported by a back-up power generator in the event of a power failure. The core purpose of storage is to provide a centralized storage facility for the seed required for crown land reforestation. The inventory also has a risk management role in the event of catastrophic losses through wildfire, the mountain pine beetle and possibily climate change. A seed bank has historically been maintained for gene conservation purposes and we are hoping to resurrect the sampling of seedlots for the seed bank. We encourage all seed owners to contribute relatively minor seed quantities for high priority species and areas when requested to do so.

Management of the inventory includes receiving seedlots` from private extractories, moving each seedlot to a holding cooler, remixing seed to ensure homogeneity, sampling for testing, weighing, cataloging and placing the seed in long-term storage. For seedlots processed at the TSC remixing is done by seed processing staff. The seed storage supervisor is also responsible for identifying low balance and/or low germination seedlots for clients. An annual summer inventory program that varies by year is conducted to re-weigh specific seedlots in storage.

The management of our inventory also involves managing seed returned from nurseries and coordinating its re-use. We strongly encourage nurseries to dry seed back after use and returning it to the TSC as soon as possible. This helps maintain quality and increases the probability of the seed being re-used. All efforts will be used to try and re-use returned seed, but the best solution is to refine your gram requirements to the minimum required to meet your seedling request. Communication and coordination between the request agency and the nursery is a very important step in reducing seed use! This is especially important with seed orchard produced lodgepole pine as there will be a significant deficit of this seed for about the next decade.

Seed ownership

Registered tree seed can be owned by private industry or the Ministry of Forests and Range. Within the Forest Service seed can be owned by Tree Improvement Branch (TIB), Field Services (Regions and Districts) and BC Timber Sales (BCTS). Field services, TIB and forest districts use set prices (see Ministry Surplus Seed Price Schedule), but private industry may establish their own seed prices. Seedlots can have more than one owner, the individual portions of seed can be viewed on SPAR. An owner can designate their seed as being 'Reserved' for their own purposes and not available for sale; as "Surplus' indicating that this seed is available for sale; or a combination of both.

Reserved portions of seedlots on SPAR can be withdrawn only by the seed owner. Sowing requests using surplus Ministry owned seed can be Approved immediately. The TSC will forward an invoice for surplus MOF owned seed at the current published seed price (see Ministry Surplus Seed Price Schedule) for these seed sales. Sowing Requests on surplus portions of licensee seedlots must be submitted as Pending sowing requests until a purchase agreement has been established. The seed owner must then verify the sale with the TSC in order for the request to be changed to an Approved status.