12/30/08 Small grains seed bank, part 2

It's dubbed the Doomsday Vault. Two years ago an international global seed vault was opened on a Norwegian island 700 miles from the North Pole. Idaho has a vault too. Seed from the National Small Grains Collection at Aberdeen is sought worldwide. Mike Bonman says when a request comes in they have 130 thousand accessions on file. BONMAN "When we take a sample out we bar code it in. We know how much seed we've taken out and we know what the current weight is, how much seed is left and when that starts to get low then we know its time to rejuvenate it and do a grow out of that accession." They send out two to five gram seed samples to researchers, usually from an original stock of 500 grams or about one pound. BONMAN "We have more diversity in terms of the different genes available in that collection that would be available probably in any of the cultivated wheats in the US." Some of the land races in the grain collection are hundreds, even thousands of years old and far different, far more diverse than many of today's varieties. BONMAN "In case we have new problems arise we can go back and tap that diversity to improve our modern varieties." Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott