Lmst

The Svalbard Seed Vault in northern Norway is an important safeguard for plants and the agriculture and ecosystems they support against rising climate stress. But - the archaeological sites in melting permafrost across the Arctic cannot all be put in a vault, nor are there secure safeguards for the culture and knowledge linked to the vaulted seeds.

I jump up and down about this in Micro-Climate Blog #26.

https://sha.org/saving-seeds-but-not-yet-sites/2024/12/

#ClimateHeritage
#SavingSeeds

In the center, a gray concrete wedge-shaped structure emerges from a snow-covered hillside. On the tallest flat side of the wedge are doors at the bottom topped by a grill and then a what appears to be a textured panel, all in similar shades of gray. A small offwhite walkway leads up to the doors in the lower left. All around are smooth snow-covered slopes below a pearly gray sky that has just a touch of peach along the skyline to the left of the structure.

Our current commercial hybrids require petrochemical fertilizers & industrial tech to make work, so basically, they're useless for the reality that's coming. Peak oil, phosphorus, and resource depletion in general, as well as the climate collapse, will all but wipe out that kind of farming.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/svalbard-global-seed-vault-purpose

"...The vault would protect... “Indigenous biocultural heritage,” an interweaving of scientific & cultural value..."

#Agriculture #Farming #FoodSecurity #SavingSeeds #FactoryFarms

Svalbard’s Global Seed Vault Banks Biodiversity and Sprouts Controversy

The Arctic facility is the world’s largest safeguard for seeds—and fertile ground for critics and conspiracy theories.
by Adriana Craciun December 2, 2024

This story was originally published on The Conversation. It appears here under a Creative Commons license.

The controversy sprouting at a global seed vault:
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway is the world's must famous backup site for seeds that are more precious than data. Unassuming as the facility might seem, however, it's been politically controversial since it opened in 2008. It is the most visible site in a global agricultural research network that supported the Green Revolution: an effort to introduce high-yielding seeds to developing nations in the mid-20th century. This saved millions of people from starvation, but it shifted agriculture in a technology intensive direction - and the Global Seed Vault a lightening rod for critiques of that effort and its long term impacts.

Two-thirds of the world’s food comes today from just nine plants: sugar cane, maize (corn), rice, wheat, potatoes, soybeans, oil-palm fruit, sugar beet, and cassava. In the past, farmers grew tens of thousands of crop varieties around the world. This biodiversity protected agriculture from crop losses caused by plant diseases and climate change.

Right now it’s hard for me to imagine the future, partly because it’s so dark, and partly because just wtf!

Yesterday I composted a bunch of plants from the garden and saved seeds to maybe help make a possible future I can’t see right now …

Four kinds of beans and peppers, radishes, and fennel.

More info in the alt-text.

#SavingSeeds #compost #gardening

A bronze fennel flower full of seeds in a white bowl full of fennel seeds.

Four kinds of dried beans for seeds in a white bowl. Scarlet Runner, King of the Variety, Pole Snap Scalzo Italian, and Wing Dau Ron.

Harvesting radish seeds. The seeds are little and they are in these white oblong pods.

Four kinds of peppers I’m going to collect seeds from: Hot Fish, Shishito, Bananna Lola, and ???

It's #SeedTapping / #SeedsCollecting time. My #liatris & #zinnias have gone to seed. I'm collecting their #seeds to save, to share & to plant next year, in new spots around the backyard.

#Gardeners #Saanich #Zone8 #VictoriaBC #SeedSavers #FlowerSeeds #perennials #SeedSaving #bloomscrolling #SavingSeeds #garden #VancouverIsland #PacificNorthwest

Red zinnias, gone to seed. Some blooms are still bright & haven't gone to seed yet.

Liatris flower spikes, all gone to seed. They look like fluffy tan pillars.

Mach möglich, Kulturpflanzen vor dem Aussterben zu bewahren

Unterstütze das Saatgut-Kollektiv saatje mit deinem monatlichen Beitrag:
https://saatje.de/support

#SavingSeeds

I don't grow vegetables at a high enough volume for #SavingSeeds but my local library started a seed program and it has nothing right now. I'm confused by the resources out there- about only heirlooms are good, which are sterile, etc. If you have a site or info to share, I'd appreciate it. #gardening #GrowYourOwn

By Mike Savad - Home Décor
https://mikesavad.com/featured/kitchen-saving-seeds-mike-savad.html

#savad #seeds #jars #summer #fall #sunflowers #savingseeds

Why should you save seeds?

If you want to grow a farm next year, you should save your seeds. Not everyone has access to ready to plant seeds. Companies that carefully sort the seed from the pod, its all very convenient, but also expensive if you have a fields to plant.

This is where drying comes in, on harvest day some of the plants are eaten, and others are placed on trays and put into a drying room. All the moisture has to be removed so it can survive to the next year. Seeds are placed in jars to help prevent moisture and it keeps pests away as well.

You don't even need that many seeds, just one will produce a plant for a 1000 more seeds. And if you had a really good year, you will probably want to keep those seeds for the next year, they are very precious things.

What weird things are you doing in the middle of the night tonight, Gigi?

Sifting sand. I need sterile sand for storing my seed potatoes over the winter.

First I baked it at 325° for 2 hours to steam off any water in it and kill anything that might be living in it, and then I sifted it through the mesh screening that I actually bought for my Ikea drainage holder wood stove/firepit as a spark arrestor.

Did I have to do this in the middle of the night? No. But I was working on something until late and still wasn't ready to go to sleep.

I am now though.
Good night!

#Gardening #harvest #GrowYourOwn #SavingSeeds #Potatoes

A small pile of sand sits a top a bit of screening which itself is a top a white bucket.

Leftover bits after the sand has gone through the screen. Mostly bits of leaves and crud.

The clean sand in a plastic container with a few blue potatoes.

The same container with the blue potatoes, except the blue potatoes are no longer visible because more sand has been added.

It would be nice to re-work the #OldJohnBrown legend into a #FukuRokuJin #福禄寿. In place of a rifle and bible the moral man wields a planting stick and container full of heirloom seeds. The resistance to slavery goes on, freeing farmers from corporate serfdom. The Japanese state is trying to implement a law that bans #farmers and #gardeners from #SavingSeeds.

#SavingSeeds

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