Doomsday Seed Vault Design Unveiled

in2mind writes "The BBC News is reporting on the completion of a design for a 'doomsday' vault ... that will house seeds. All known varieties of food crops will be represented in the structure, which will be constructed by the Norwegian government. The vault aims to safeguard the world's agriculture from future catastrophes by building into the side of a mountain. On a remote island. Near the North pole. The Svalbard International Seed Vault will house the seed samples at a preservative -18C (0F), and could be used by post-apocalyptic people to feed a hungry planet."

Re:0 Degrees now or then?

[unchiujar]

RTFA:"We also modelled climate change in a drastic form 200 years into future, which included the melting of ice sheets at the North and South Poles, and Greenland, to make sure that this site was above the resulting water level."

Re:yeah.

[Anonymous Coward]

could be used by post-apocalyptic people to feed a hungry planet.

Mother Earth hates it when you anthromorphise her.

A good idea...

[capebretonsux]

From reading a few of the comments I think that some posters are missing the point. First off, the idea is not to save a few seeds in the hopes that those seeds will feed the 'entire' population of earth after planting just one crop. The idea is to preserve the overall agricultural diversity of our 'future' ecosystem. As one particular species of plant (or whatever) goes extinct, the proposed seed bank would (hopefully) ensure that our future ancestors could reintroduce the species back into the ecosystem, assuming that whatever caused the species to go extinct was no longer present, be it nuclear war, climatic changes, etc. As for the location, well, I imagine that it makes more financial sense to keep them in a place where you won't have to foot the air-conditioning bill. Sure, it would be great to have these 'master-backup' seed banks all over the earth to prevent a wayward disaster from wiping out the whole stock, but I'd guess that the cost of building a cold-storage facility for an indefinite period of operation in Nairobi would be much more costly. (Not to mention that if the arctic DOES melt, we're all probably done for anyways...) And the article does mention that there are several seed banks already in existence, and that this facility is to be a more secure backup to the existing banks. Just my 2 cents...

Heck, how long will the SEEDS last.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

How long will a post-apocalyptic population last on seeds that are buried in a mountain on a remote island? Provided they can get there, how many big macs can they make from those seeds?

And they might as well make them into bread, because they are unlikely to sprout.

Seeds stay fertile only for a limited time. You can stretch that somewhat by keeping them frozen - provided that the particular seeds can survive freezing, of course. But short of cryonic preservation (after perfusing them with cryoprotectants) you're not going to get them to last more than a few years.

That's why REAL plant gene banks work by growing the plants with heavy water. This drastically slows their metabolism (along with that of any bugs that might attack them), resulting in these tiny bonsai-like specimens that live very slowly - and thus very long - and eventually make seeds you can use to continue the cycle. Grow their seeds in normal water and you're back to normal plants - or gradually switch the plants over to normal water and they may revert to normal growth patterns.

Re:Heck, how long will the SEEDS last.

[tomhudson]

"Seeds stay fertile only for a limited time. You can stretch that somewhat by keeping them frozen - provided that the particular seeds can survive freezing, of course. But short of cryonic preservation (after perfusing them with cryoprotectants) you're not going to get them to last more than a few years."

Some seeds can go over 1,000 years and still germinate. The current confirmed record (carbon dating) is 2,000 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed#Oldest_viable_se eds [wikipedia.org].

Seeds are tough. Here's a 120-year experiment: http://www.amjbot.org/cgi/content/abstract/89/8/12 85 [amjbot.org]

Re:Heck, how long will the SEEDS last.

[alshithead]

From TFA..."Some crops, such as peas, may only survive for 20-30 years. Others, such as sunflowers and grain crops, are understood to last for many decades or even hundreds of years."

They already know the likely shelf life for most of these seeds. Out of any given sample of seeds a shrinking percentage will germinate over x years. Some seeds last better than others. That certainly doesn't negate the attempt. If even just a couple can germinate then the species can be potentially be brought back. I keep seeds from all kinds of plants from my gardens every year. I've had high percentages germinate from years old seeds and low percentages from last year's seeds. I've always been able to keep a line going even if only a couple of plants matured.

"That's why REAL plant gene banks work by growing the plants with heavy water. This drastically slows their metabolism (along with that of any bugs that might attack them), resulting in these tiny bonsai-like specimens that live very slowly - and thus very long - and eventually make seeds you can use to continue the cycle. Grow their seeds in normal water and you're back to normal plants - or gradually switch the plants over to normal water and they may revert to normal growth patterns."

Define "REAL" plant bank for us please. You say, "or gradually switch the plants over to normal water and they may revert to normal growth patterns". Let me emphasize your word "MAY". I would think a real seed bank has seeds from real plants, not plants that have been modified dramatically and may or may not germinate true.

Re:Heck, how long will the SEEDS last.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Some seeds can go over 1,000 years and still germinate. ...

Seeds are tough.

Some are, some, aren't. [wikipedia.org]

As you'll note from the article, some seeds (such as those of cocoa and rubber) are "recalcitrant" and can't be banked at all. Many others can be banked for a few years but need to be sprouted and new seeds grown from time to time.

Yes, the seeds of some plants can go for centuries. But that's outliers, not something you can count on for seeds of arbitrary crops.

Norway is rich 'cause it fired the oil companies

[Catbeller]

Why, how can Norway spend money on this far-sighted project?

They nationalized the oil industry. They don't pay tens of billions of dollars a quarter in raw profits to the big four oil corporations. They have their own oil resources in the North Sea.

And since the told the reavers to get the hell out, they are running nice surpluses, have an excellent federally funded school system, giving them intelligent citizens, and they may save the plant diversity of the planet during the coming climate wreck.

Now, if they can fast track some space colonization, they might save humans from getting overheated to death.

These are things you can do if your country isn't being run by international oil companies.