Systematic and careful preservation of germplsm stored as seeds eliminates frequent growing out of the collection for seed rejuvenation, which is time consuming and expensive. It also avoids the dangers of contamination, outcrossing and unwanted selection pressure. GRU stores seed from over 128 000 accessions in controlled temperature and humidity.

The seed stored at GRU is safety duplicated in other genebanks around the world.  GRU also safety duplicates seed from other genebanks as part of its service to the international community.

There are different types of collections stored at GRU. There is an active collection, which is available for for distribution and includes all accessions. This collection is stored in plastic containers in an atmosphere of 0oC and 15 –20 % humidity. The Base collection is a safety duplicate of the active collection and is kept under conditions where the seeds remain viable for up to 100 years. In this case they are hermetically sealed in aluminum foil packets and kept at -20 oC.

At present the GRU also maintains core collections of barely and barely wild relatives. A core collection is a representative subset of the base collection for a given crop.  The aim is to capture as much of the variation as possible in as few accessions as possible.  Core collections for the other ICARDA mandate crops are under development.