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We might need to preserve seeds again due to climate change. Impressive to read about those who literally sacrificed their life during a siege for science and t
by bfelbo 2y ago
We might need to preserve seeds again due to climate change. Impressive to read about those who literally sacrificed their life during a siege for science and the future of humanity. Thanks for sharing.
- Etheryte 2y agoThere are multiple national and international initiatives that have been building seed banks for a long time, what do you mean with the again?
- mmooss 2y agoAlso, there's talk of putting one on the moon.
- Arch-TK 2y agoDon't seed banks need regular refreshing?
- throwup238 2y agoIdeally yes but scientists have grown crops from single seeds that are thousands of years old so as long as the facilities passively maintain a low temperature, many of them will be viable for a very long time.
- Blahah 2y agoSeed banks are mostly self-refreshing. Seed viability decline during storage is measured and modelled for. A sample of seeds is taken out of storage and grown to breed a new batch of seeds after an amount of time based on the rate of decline of that sample. So a batch that loses 20% viability every 5 years will be regrown to seed after a shorter amount of time than one that loses 2% viability every 5 years. Source: was a seed germination and dormancy researcher at the Millennium Seed Bank
- Arch-TK 2y agoYeah but even if the viability decline was quite slow on the moon, you would still have to refresh _eventually_, at least that's how I understand what you wrote. Are we going to have robots on the moon doing the refreshing? That would be cool.
- josefx 2y agoIf you have everything on the moon needed to grow a large amount of plants couldn't you also support a human or two?
- quietbritishjim 2y agoI'm the context of this comment chain, you're agreeing with the parent comment with a tone of disagreement. Yes, seed banks need periodic attention (whether you call that refreshing or self-refreshing or whatever), so you couldn't stick a bunch of seeds on the moon and just leave them there.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ahazred8ta 2y agoThe proposed lunar seed bank is cryogenic, not room temperature.
- nsxwolf 2y agoWhat is the meaning of "self-refreshing" there, though? That sounds like a lot of work.
- mmooss 2y agoThere are relatively serious plans for permanent habitation on the moon. Transporting seeds occasionally hopefully won't require launching a lot of mass, but I don't know how many seeds they store.
- vbezhenar 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault After nuclear war I'm going to head there.
- Etheryte 2y agoI love the fact that [0] is one of the videos you see when you look it up on Google Maps. [0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/fWHX7Ba4B6H9iemf7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/fWHX7Ba4B6H9iemf7
- xeeeeeeeeeeenu 2y agoVirtual tour of the vault: https://virtualtourcompany.co.uk/GlobalSeedVault/index.html https://virtualtourcompany.co.uk/GlobalSeedVault/index.html
- BurningFrog 2y agoThe food should last quite a while!
- lofaszvanitt 2y agoIt will be heavily guarded.
- martyvis 2y agoThere is a wonderful plant bank here in Sydney, Australia. Lots of thick mud walls and other sophistications to outlast weather and similar incidents. https://www.botanicgardens.org.au/our-science/science-facilities/australian-plantbank/visit-plantbank https://www.botanicgardens.org.au/our-science/science-facili...