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As per Index Astartes, each Chapter is obligated to give 5% of its "genetic material" as a tax to Mars, but how exactly is this done? Is each Chapter sending a merchant vessel to Mars to personally drop off this tax? Is there a Martian vessel popping by to collect it on Mar's behalf? If the Chapter is sending a vessel to pay in person, would it be one of the Chapter's own warships? or a contractor vessel under lease?

According to their charter, each Chapter is obliged to send 5% of its genetic material to the Adeptus Mechanicus on Mars. This 'tithe' has two purposes. Firstly, it enables the Adeptus Mechanicus to monitor the health of each Marine Chapter. Secondly, it enables the Adeptus Mechanicus to store gene-seed with a view to founding new Chapters.

I assume it goes with the Space Marines when they go to Mars to train new Tech Marines.

It’s a big galaxy, with 1,000 chapters. I would suggest all of the above as reasonable methods, and probably some more esoteric ones, like one chapter has some DAOT teleporter tech that the apothecaries ritually place all f their collected gene seed into, and it automagically forwards 5%’to Mars and/or the nearest Forgeworld.

Turns out Caryatids are warp capable under certain circumstances and act remarkably like bees in certain ways, just with gene seed.
Every 20th marine gets made into a specialised transport marine (rather than a combat marine) who then has to undertake a solo pilgrimage to Mars by whatever means necessary, where they then get rendered down for storage.

Or something even weirder. Go as grimdark as you like

Well, we know from Storm of Iron that tithed Geneseed isn’t kept in just one place.

And if I’m right in thinking, there’s mention of fleets going to the Chapters to collect the tithe. Which suggests the tithe is taken periodically.

How often? I don’t know. Could be once per century, could be more or less frequent than that. But, given geneseed takes time to mature within a Marine, it can’t be too often, like once a year or once a decade.

I'd wager its more likely once a decade or Chapters wouldn't ever have any geneseed reserves.

As for transport, it'll be either a Mechanicus or Astartes vessel with the appropriate medical and storage facilties.

Got me wondering now how much Geneseed might be floating around within The Imperium.

We know that, in an ideal world, each and every Astartes provides at least two Progenoid Glands. Why at least when only two are implanted? I’m not sure we’ve anything which says each is a One And Done. Particularly long lived Astarte if the biological gathering of Geneseed is a reparable process, could provide multiple Progenoids over their lives.

But let’s rule that out now, and stick with “only two per Marine”.

Whilst commonly harvested on death, that’s not a hard rule, especially the one in the neck which is harvested once mature.

But, that still takes time, and by no means will all Astartes live long enough for that maturation to occur in the first place.

Then we have the fact it’s stored for a long, long time. Not just to help produce new Chapters when a Founding is made, but to help an existing Chapter survive catastrophic losses (either in head count, or losing its own storage facility) of its own stock.

Honestly I would expect enough to be stored in Chapter vaults and Mechanicus facilities to effectively rebuild the Legiones Astartes, well the Loyalist ones that is.

The geneseed tithe is just one part of it and it can still be made in labs by the Biologis.

The Imperium could always choose to make more Astartes but doesn't to make sure the Heresy doesn't happen again.

40k is deliberately built in a way where if you can conceive of a plausible option for something, it's probably happening somewhere.

So any time a question like that is asked, the answer is yes.

40k is basically scifi improv, 'yes and' ing everything...

At least in the old lore, Astartes took their geneseed seriously. I'd wager those tithe delivery missions would be awarded only to venerated brothers of the Chapter, and would probably utilize the Astartes' own transports (maybe even with some escort ships/fighters deploying alongside). Transporting the seed of the Chapter is probably a sign of prestige, its not very exciting but you're essentially carrying the collective thoughts, emotions and memories of your brothers within. Could easily see a whole squad, with a Chaplain and an Apotechary assigned for the task whenever resources arent spread thin. At a bare minimum, a single Apotechary would be in charge of transportation as well as monitoring the geneseed's "health" doesnt deteriorate for any reason during the transit.