5 Responses so far

1. 1. Steve Buchheit on May 31st, 2007 at 3:28 pm

   There are many of these all over the world. There are also “Frozen Arks” at various zoos, one of the major ones including an intense fertility research groups is at the Cincinnati Zoo.

   Plus we have the return of “Heritage Seeds,” that is, those seeds that aren’t modified or monocultured. One of the major plants that ignited this movement was the tomatoes. Apple trees are also very interesting in this regard.

   Damn, I sound like an encyclopedia.

2. 2. Douglas on May 31st, 2007 at 4:29 pm

   This has James Bond’s evil nemesis’ hideout written all over it.

3. 3. Wyman Cooke on May 31st, 2007 at 4:36 pm

   Yeah. All that was missing was some Norwegian henchmen with Uzi’s or AK-47’s….

4. 4. Steve Buchheit on May 31st, 2007 at 8:59 pm

   Forgot to mention several problems with seed banks. One, there’s always spoilage of seeds, no matter what precautions are taken, it’s the rules of the road. Two, not all seeds can be stored this way (there are some seeds that require ground contract fairly quickly after being fertilized). Three, we don’t understand all the mechanisms for all seeds (even for garden varieties, some need to be abraised with sandpaper for proper growth for example). And then there are the billions of micro-organisms that are required for proper plant growth. In some cases, the plants won’t grow without their attendant soil bacterias.

   And finally, this predisposes that humans will survive the “catastrophic” event to re-seed the world once conditions can be made to start growing these crops again. This isn’t a given.

5. 5. Tobias Buckell on Jun 1st, 2007 at 2:35 pm

   Well, that would be why the bank is called a ‘living’ place, they do acknowledge those issues

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