BRAHMS for Seed Bank Management

Banner image provided by RBG Kew

The seed module, developed collaboratively with the Millennium Seed Bank at RBG Kew, has broad curation and research applications for projects that collect, store, test and distribute seed. Seed accessions with passport data, processing, weight/count calculations, viability/germination tests, storage and dispatch, related vouchers and images are all integrated in the now extensively updated BRAHMSv.8. A key focus is to facilitate and encourage good seed management practice and the ability of seed banks, small and large, to better coordinate their seed collection and distribution activities.

Entering seed weight calculations and germination test observations

Key features

• Seed accession records including all passport and wild origin data can be managed with links to vouchers, project and agreement details, seed batch data, cleaning methodology and results, store bank location including duplication to other seed banks.
• Seed counting processes including absolute and/or estimates via seed sample weights, incorporation of x-ray and/or cut-testing analysis to provide adjusted quantities per collection.
• Germination test design including addition of multiple conditions and treatments. Germination test results are provided for both germination and viability percentages, including germination rate.
• Automated scoring of collections against Millennium Seed Bank Partnership Seed Conservation Standards.
• PDF files, Excel sheets and other documents can be linked to accession, individual plant, species and other records. Examples are material transfer documents and species level spreadsheets.
• Easy to download data to other formats such as Excel - for further processing.
• Images of seed or the plants in their original habitat can be added, together with voucher images as available.
• Projects can extend the standard BRAHMS seed data file structures by adding custom fields - these then become a part of your database.
• The Rapid Data Entry (RDE) module is used to capture new seed accessions and test data or to transfer data from other formats such as Excel worksheets.
• You can design your own website and publish a virtual seedbank or online plant catalogue directly from BRAHMS sing BRAHMS WebConnect. For example see the RBG Kew MSBP Data Warehouse at http://brahmsonline.kew.org/msbp.

The Millennium Seed Bank, the world’s largest seed banking project, uses BRAHMS to bring together seed accession and test data from across the many partners in the Millennium seed Bank Partnership covering some 53 countries and 123 organisations. Visit the MSBP Data Warehouse.