Sterilizing Seed Banks: Why Genetic Integrity Preservation Is the Hardest Constraint in Agricultural Biotechnology

A sterile seed that will not germinate is worthless. In every other sterilization context the objective is a single variable — kill the microorganisms. In seed banks and agricultural biotech laboratories the objective is two simultaneous variables: kill the microorganisms and preserve the biology. VHP is the only validated sterilization modality that satisfies both constraints at the same time.