[HN Gopher] The Leningrad botanists who saved the first seed bank
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The Leningrad botanists who saved the first seed bank
Author : robaato
Score : 133 points
Date : 2024-11-12 11:31 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| bfelbo wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| There are multiple national and international initiatives that
| have been building seed banks for a long time, what do you mean
| with the again?
| mmooss wrote:
| Also, there's talk of putting one on the moon.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| Don't seed banks need regular refreshing?
| throwup238 wrote:
| Ideally 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.
| lukan wrote:
| " as long as the facilities passively maintain a low
| temperature"
|
| And remain dry.
| whythre wrote:
| Shouldn't be a problem on the moon.
| Blahah wrote:
| Seed 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 wrote:
| Yeah 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 wrote:
| If you have everything on the moon needed to grow a large
| amount of plants couldn't you also support a human or
| two?
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| I'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.
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| The proposed lunar seed bank is cryogenic, not room
| temperature.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| What is the meaning of "self-refreshing" there, though?
| That sounds like a lot of work.
| sholladay wrote:
| How does that work with apple trees and such?
|
| My understanding is you could have a fantastic apple
| seed, grow it into a fantastic tree with fantastic fruit,
| but then the next generation grown from its seeds might
| be nearly inedible. And that all the delicious fruit we
| eat comes from grafted trees as a result of this.
|
| Also, more generally, lots of trees are huge, so
| presumably you aren't growing them in a cave or mine
| shaft. How is that handled?
| mmooss wrote:
| There 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 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault
|
| After nuclear war I'm going to head there.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I 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
| xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote:
| Virtual tour of the vault:
| https://virtualtourcompany.co.uk/GlobalSeedVault/index.html
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The food should last quite a while!
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| It will be heavily guarded.
| martyvis wrote:
| There 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-facili...
| dylan604 wrote:
| Cosmos with Neil Degrasse Tyson also did an episode on this:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaqVg6BXXtA
| unlog wrote:
| > The uploader has not made this video available in your
| country
|
| We really need a civilization changing event to rethink some
| stuff.
| teddyh wrote:
| <magnet:?xt=urn:btih:2650E9B1E36E713DD78BAFC638408A491854B839
| >
| juno_oneohsix wrote:
| The same stopmotion animation studio that did the film
| Anomalisa did this episode!
| jhbadger wrote:
| Elise Blackwell wrote "Hunger", a novel about these botanists,
| which I thought was well done.
| yeetusus wrote:
| see: Lysenkoism
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| What kind of cabbage is that? I mean look at their size.
| codesnik wrote:
| um, a normal one? it looks exactly what I've seen on my
| grandmother's garden patch in my childhood. It's just that size
| is not very practical for supermarkets and a small family
| consumption, so current selection and harvesting methods go in
| the opposite direction.
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Interesting. I've never seen such a huge cabbage.
| erie wrote:
| There is also a more recent one in Syria :"How Seeds from War-
| Torn Syria Could Help Save American Wheat - May 14, 2018
| https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-seeds-from-war-torn-syria...
| And another take on it here: How Syrians Saved an Ancient
| Seedbank From Civil War When civil war broke out in Syria, Ahmed
| Amri immediately thought about seeds. Specifically, 141,000
| packets of them sitting in cold storage 19 miles south of Aleppo.
| https://www.wired.com/2015/04/syrians-saved-ancient-seedbank...
| surfingdino wrote:
| Pity the Ukrainian seed bank did not survive the Russians
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/2321008-priceless-sampl...
| cschmid wrote:
| There's a song about this: 'When The War Came' by The
| Decemberists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJHOiQ2uniU
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