Seeds, whether cannabis seeds or not, can be broadly categorized into two groups, such as Orthodox seeds and Recalcitrant seeds. Orthodox seeds have a natural dormancy feature and are suitable for long term storage. They have to be stored in a cool, dry condition for that. These are the seeds that can be easily stored in the seed bank. On the other hand, Recalcitrant seeds cannot be stored at low humidity and subzero temperature since it damages the germplasm. They have to be replanted continuously.

Fortunately, marijuana seeds come in the first category. They are therefore, preserved in different seed banks for a pretty long time catering to the requirements of the customers, mostly the medicine companies and life saving drug manufacturers.

To achieve the optimal condition for storage of the seeds, they are dried to a moisture content of less than 6% and thereafter they are stored in freezers at -180 Celsius. Most of the leading seed banks including the Amsterdam Marijuana, Marijuana en, Elephantos, Buy Dutch seeds and Weed Seeds follow the same principle.

It is imperative that recalcitrant seeds cannot be stored and therefore only a limited number of the world’s biodiversity seeds are stored. Moreover, only 15% of the seed bank crops come in the category of wild species and the remaining are only crops. The financial implications for the third world countries may not be very friendly though these are the areas that have highest amount of biodiversity.