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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Doomsday Vault safeguards Harrow soybean seeds HARROW -- Soybeans grown in Harrow have been locked in the Doomsday Vault along with seeds from around the world, preserved and protected in case of disaster. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault that's been dubbed the Doomsday Vault opened Tuesday on a snowy Norwegian island in the Arctic Circle. Canada sent 5,936 seed samples representing 94 different species from the national seed bank located in Saskatoon, including 109 varieties of soybeans that were grown at the Greenhouse and Processing Crops Research Centre in Harrow. "It was grown under the sun of Ontario," Axel Diederichsen, curator and research scientist of the Plant Gene Resources of Canada Centre in Saskatoon, said Tuesday. Canada's main contribution was barle -- 3,777 different lines of barley from the Saskatoon centre's large barley and oat collections. "You can't start a new world without beer," joked Diederichsen. Although the vault cut into the side of a mountain is dubbed the Doomsday Vault, Diederichsen described it more as a "backup collection" in case some of the world's 1,400 genebanks are destroyed. Genebanks which store seeds that otherwise would be lost forever, could be wiped out by fire or in the case of a developing country, a power outage, he said. Each country maintains ownership of its seeds in Norway and can add to the collection and retrieve seeds. Diederichsen said publicity surrounding opening of the international vault in Norway is increasing awareness of the importance of saving seeds. While there are about 7,000 species of plants that have been used for food, today's farmers use less than 150 species. Scientists want to save seeds because old or wild varieties of plants that are no longer grown may have a characteristic they need, such as a tolerance to a disease. The Norwegian vault is protecting 268,000 different seed samples from around the world. Each sample can include hundreds of seeds, so the vault already has about 10 tons of seeds. It can store more than two billion seeds. The seeds are sealed in foil packages and stored at -18C to slow the aging of the seeds. If the electricity fails, the permafrost in the remote mountain location should keep the seeds alive. In the cold temperature, scientists estimate some seeds in the vault could remain viable for thousands of years. Margie Luffman, curator of the Canadian Clonal Genebank in Harrow, said the Doomsday Vault reminds her of Superman's Fortress of Solitude. It's a Noah's Ark of seeds, she said. Saving seeds preserves genetic diversity and could be vital in case of disaster. "If all the crops and everything were wiped out, people would be able to go to this place to get seeds and germplasm (genetic material) to start anew." It's not clear how people would get into the secured vault that's 1,000 kilometres from the North Pole in case of a global disaster. The vault was started more to preserve biodiversity and adapt to climate change. The Canadian Clonal Genebank in Harrow didn't contribute because it doesn't store seeds. It protects 3,400 unique lines of fruit, from apple trees to strawberry plants, in an outdoor orchard and through some plants kept in a greenhouse. Luffman said the genebank has sent 50 different kinds of apples to be cryopreserved at -150C at a U.S. Department of Agriculture facility in Colorado.
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A Canticle for Leibowitz.
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