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."

Comments

How long will a post-apocalyptic population last

[Anonymous Coward]

...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?

Oh Great.

[notnAP]

Now the aliens know where to aim their bunker buster lasers.

yeah.

[User 956]

The Svalbard International Seed Vault will house the seed samples will at a preservative -18C (0F), and could be used by post-apocalyptic people to feed a hungry planet.

I don't think Unicron likes seeds.

Some thoughts...

[Chairboy]

The summary claims that it "could be used by post-apocalyptic people to feed a hungry planet". If it were a system of distributed vaults spread around the planet, I could see this happening.

But a single vault in an inaccessible area? Let's consider the situation. If the world is 'post-apocalyptic', that means some seriously bad stuff has happened. To assume that whatever happened was so selective as to leave the worldwide transport infrastructure needed to take the seeds and "feed a hungry planet" but happened to kill all seed stores and food sources... requires a stretch of the imagination that would snap a logical mind.

I'm all for dramatic story summaries that play fast and loose with the facts to get me to- hey, wait a second, no I'm not.

Here's a sci-fi plot

[oskard]

Scientists go to the North Pole to build a Doomsday Vault, only to find such a vault is already there.

o_O

Re:Here's a sci-fi plot

[naoursla]

Or a twilight zone episode.

Or maybe an H. P. Lovecraft story...

Scientists go to the North Pole build a doomsday vault so that they will have food in case of a global catastrophe. They discover that a hidden chamber with alien hieroglyphics on the seal. Through careful study and in-depth analysis they decipher the code and learn that WE are the doomsday vault that an ancient race prepared in case of a global catastrophe. The seal is broken. The Old Ones begin to return from the deep unknown to feed.

Not for immediate use doofuses

[GodfatherofSoul]

The assumption for this project is that you'll be able to find enough other sources of food to last you until the next harvest; canned goods, plants, the dead. No one said this is supposed to feed survivors immediately, otherwise they would have built a pantry. Plus, with all the genetic engineering going on, it's nice to know that we have at least some of the original stock preserved should we accidentally implant some Achilles Heel that causes a crop to be wiped out be disease, plague, or climate.

Distributed Repositories

[Camel Pilot]

Seems like putting all your eggs in a single basket is maybe not the best solution.

Since seeds are cheap why not distribute storage repositories around the globe?

Nonetheless I am thankful that the Norwegians are doing this for potentially all of humanity.

Come to think about it, I suppose the fact that our collective genome is stuck on this planet is akin to putting all your eggs in a single fragile basket.

It would make a good movie.

[khasim]

Ocean voyage. Fighting off post-apocalyptic pirates to get to the seed storage site only to find that it's submerged and you have to fight mutant sea creatures to get inside so you can save your village with the last non-mutated vegetables in the world.

Kind of like a cross between "The Postman" and "Waterworld".

Okay, I lied about the "good" part. :)

Post-Apocalyptic Giant Mutant Birds Say THANK YOU!

[schwaang]

Now they'll have something to eat besides all the cockroaches.

What about patents?

[marcello_dl]

Didn't USA build a doomsday vault for patents? It scares me a lot more than the doomsday vault for seed. Because it means that somebody might actually have a plan to rule the post apocalyptic world, and when that somebody is powerful enough, there's interest for the apocalypse to begin.

People naively assume that since the climate ruins the entire planet, nobody really wants climate changes to happen. This is just a random assumption. A polluted planet means man is not free to breath air, drink water, procreate. And those who have the knowledge to make food water air or babies in that polluted world, rule it.

or book, or game...

[spun]

Nah, it could be a good movie, or a good video game, or paper RPG module, or book for that matter. I had the same exact thought, "Whoah, that would make a cool story!"

Imagine, it starts out in some desolate village, with people scraping by on a few mutant crops and canned goods. Every year, the situation becomes a little more desperate as the crops produce few viable seeds and the canned goods are running out. Our intrepid hero (probably a moon-headed youth out exploring some old ruins instead of working) finds a fragment of an ancient magazine mentioning the seed-vault. He has some difficulty convincing his elders to invest any of the villages precious food-stuffs in his hair-brained scheme, but then the village seed stocks are plundered by raiders, leaving no choice. Of course, the raiders find out about the seed-vault and thus become recurring bad-guys throughout the rest of the story.

The journey to the seed-vault would be fraught with danger. Mutants, savages, the ever-present raiders, hot-zones and weather run amok all dog our heros on their journey. I say heros, because of course we need a team. There has to be the strong and capable ranger-type who doesn't quite trust the kid; the plucky heroine, tomboyish until she lets her hair down and we discover just how beautiful she is; the kid's geeky friend who knows how to fix things; the brawny muscle-type with a secret heart of gold who sacrifices himself when all seems lost, and the sneaky one who turns out to be a traitor like we always suspected he would.

When they finally get there, they discover... well, it could go lots of ways here. I'll leave it up to the imagination.

Bees

[camperdave]

Oh Crap! This one says we need bees to pollinate the flowers. Does anyone remember where we keep the Doomsday Insect Vault?

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.

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

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.

Sneaky Norwegians...

[bagsc]

1) Build Post-Apocalyptic Seed Bank for $5 million
2) Cause Apocalypse
3) Profit!!

Too Much Emphasis on the "Doomsday" Aspects

[beadfulthings]

And not enough emphasis on the biodiversity aspects.

We're really shooting ourselves in our collective foot by the "efficiencies" being implemented in modern farming. Where before there might have been numerous different and diverse varieties of a plant--potatoes, say, or tomatoes, beans, peas, or apples--now farmers concentrate on just a few that are high-yielding or easy to control or that are otherwise "efficient." The same holds true of animals used for food. Many formerly robust breeds of pigs or chickens or beef cattle are now verging on extinction because it's cheaper to focus on raising one or two breeds.

What happens if a blight or pest shows up that devastates our few varieties of corn or wheat? Suppose the more popular breed of swine or chicken develops some sort of genetic anomaly or other disease? I believe (but am not sure) that there's already been a scare regarding corn. It could happen with any other food plant.

Interested hobbyist gardeners have been forming "seed savers" groups for years to perpetuate what they call "heirloom" vegetables. (They do it for ornamental plants, too.) More recently, small-scale farmers and hobbyists have begun doing the same thing with "heritage" livestock animals such as turkeys, chickens, and swine.

There's an interest in these products among food lovers (fancy restaurants, famous chefs, or what-have you). Heirloom tomatoes and heritage pork are deemed to be a lot tastier than the everyday supermarket varieties, and I suspect that may be true. But more attention needs to be paid to preserving all these breeds and varieties so that our food plants and animals retain the robustness that comes from diversity.