Can seed banks save threatened plants?
Posted by staff / August 6, 2010
A post-apocalypse trip to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault to retrieve the seeds that will save humanity may seem like good fodder for a movie. But seed banks have important work to do right now. In spite of being nicknamed the Doomsday Vault, the Svalbard vault’s real goal is to protect crop diversity by safeguarding spare seeds.
This might all sound like a lot of work to protect some seeds, but think about this: Farmers have been saving seeds since as early as 6750 B.C. — maybe even longer. And while there are hundreds of thousands of known plant species, we use shockingly few — around 200 — as food crops. With so few species in the mix, a major event wiping out a staple like corn, wheat or rice could cause real trouble.
Full article at HowStuffWorks.com.
Photo credit: Fotolia
Comments are off for this post.