How long do seeds last?

As per title. How long do you reckon seeds last?

A year? 2 years perhaps. Maybe five at a push.

How about 30,000 years?

BBC News - Ancient plants back to life after 30,000 frozen years

 

That's interesting Clueless. Such a delicate plant. We also know that white flowering plants tend to be hardier than other colours, so could that be a reason why they existed in that particular region?

 

Most interesting Clueless. Micropropagation rather than seed.

 

Fantastic Dave

I love to hear of things like this, breaking the boundaries of botanical science.

Unfortunately, we've been cursed to live in "Interesting Times"

 

Very interesting Clueless ............and I thought I'd done well germinating seed that was around 10 years old

 

red cross & seeds

Hi,
Its a question asked many times and ive a bit of fact info that may bring hope to all those seeds found laying in sheds from years ago.

I did say a short while back about buying books from the red cross and animal rescue type shops?? And what happens to some of the money from these sales.

Well the red cross invested a lot of money into a lab, thats bringing used seeds of many years standing "Back to life",
this is also bringing back all types of veg/fruits etc that thanks to the supermarkets have disapeared because of one reason or another ie not the most popular ones to sell hence little or no profit.

But if kept in good frost free & dry conditions 4 years is the average seed life span.

 

Ice age flower resurrected

Ice To See You: 30,000-Year-Old Flower Revived

I really really hope they don't manage to resurrect a Woolly Mammoth though.

 

Thank you Merel - I read that with great interest.

Personally I would love to see a Woolly Mammoth - but it does raise some serious questions about making designer animals and then designer people.

But I wouldn't mind a 16 foot Woolly Lupin in my garden.

 

Ancient plant brought back to life

Ancient plant brought back to life after being buried by squirrels in Siberian permafrost more than 30,000 years ago

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Last updated at 1:53 PM on 21st February 2012

• Comments (21)
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As far a flowering pot plants go, the Silene stenophylla plant sitting in a corner of a Russian laboratory will not win many awards.
The one award it will win, however, is pretty impressive: The most ancient, viable, multi-cellular, living organism on Earth.
The Silene stenophylla was brought back to life using seeds buried by squirrels in Siberian permafrost more than 30,000 years ago.

The seeds have been held in suspended animation by the cold, which has served as a 'frozen gene pool', scientists say.


Still growing strong: After 30,500 years buried in permanently frozen soil, the Silene stenophylla bore fruit and bloomed petite white flowers

The breakthrough means some early lifeforms, which 'have long since vanished from the earth's surface', could still be held in the frozen wastes.

It also suggests that dormant life found on Mars or other icy planets could be revived.

The seeds were dug out of the fossilised burrows of Arctic ground squirrels that roamed the bleak treeless tundra near modern day Kolyma in Russia during the Ice Age, when humans shared the Earth with mammoths and Neanderthals.

Powerful microscopes showed they were the fruits of Silene stenophylla - a small herbaceous plant that displays petite white flowers when in bloom - and still grows in the region today.


Unassuming: Under sterile conditions, and using state-of-the-art growing techniques, scientists were able to grow a large number of plants from on seed

The only difference was these seeds - preserved at a depth of 125 feet (38 metres) at sub-zero temperatures - were slightly smaller than their modern-day counterparts.

Radiocarbon dating analysis showed they were between 31,500 and 32,100 years old, reported Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers said that, because the squirrels' pantries hugged ice wedges and icy sediment, their cache was quickly frozen and preserved without defrosting.

Lead researcher Dr David Gilichinsky, of the Soil Cryology Laboratory in Moscow, said the sediments were from an era known geologically as the Late Pleistocene and had a temperature of minus seven degrees centigrade that had 'never thawed'.


Read more: Ancient plant brought back to life after being buried by squirrels in Siberian permafrost 30,000 years ago | Mail Online​

 

...Sorry merleword , I didn`t notice that we post the same articles .....but really interesting to read both.

 

I've merged all 3 threads now, to save confusion.

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