"The Doomsday Vault"

Charlottesvillain, over at TigerHawk, has a post up called: The Doomsday Vault. It’s about the efforts of a group called The Global Crop Diversity Trust to build a repository for “three million batches of seeds from all known varieties of the planet's crops.” The premise sounds fascinating and the facility looks like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. Cool. Go read the post then follow the link there to the original article.

The question of the viability of the seed after 20 or 30 years of storage. As I commented there, the DNA content of the seed itself (some 400 baggies of500 seeds of each variety) will allow scientists in the future to resurrect these plants ala Jurassic Park dinosaurs. (Hopefully without the attendant mayhem produced in the film. So beware the snapdragons!)

He (Charlottesvillain) also provides links to other groups doing similar work, namely Native Seeds/SEARCH and Seed Savers Exchange. These two can be used by current gardeners who wish to see old varieties of fruits, vegetables and flowers kept thriving.

This was the best post I saw today as it contained nothing about politics, or global warming, or Anna Nicole Smith. Thank you Charlottesvillain!