Preface

The Nordic Gene Bank¹ established the 100 year seed storage experiment in Coal mine no. 3 outside Longyearbyen in 1986. The experiment was established with the aim to monitor the longevity of seeds in this Nordic back-up seed collection that were deposited in the coal mine from 1984 and to gain general knowledge about the longevity of seed stored under permafrost conditions, as well as studying the survival of seed borne plant pathogens.

Seed samples have regularly been withdrawn for analysis according to a fixed withdrawal and analyze plan, that will continue until the last samples are analyzed in 2086.

/Åsmund Asdal, NordGen, 6th of February 2024.

Preface

^{1 Predecessor to today's plant section of The Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen).}

The seeds in the experiment are stored in a steel container inside the coal mine.

In this video about the 100 year experiment, you can follow the seeds from the coal mine to NordGen's seed laboratory.