How ancient seeds from the Fertile Crescent could help save us from climate change

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'These wild relatives of crops have ... witnessed so many different climates. The traits that help them adapt and survive in these conditions is stored in their DNA. We have this diversity and it can be a tool to help us face the future.'

, where cultivation began some 11,000 years ago. Other seeds were deposited by researchers who've hiked in the past four decades through forests and mountains in the Middle East, Asia and North Africa, searching for wild relatives of wheat, legumes and other crops that are important to the human diet.

And the seeds that ICARDA — which is funded by governments and international organizations — sends to scientists around the world are used to develop new varieties of crops such as wheat that can tolerate heat and drought. The seed bank was originally housed in Syria, at a center close to Aleppo. But then civil war began in 2011, and rebels opposing the Syrian government and Islamic extremists took over parts of the country. At least one ICARDA researcher was kidnapped; others were shot at. Armed men stole the organization's flock of over 300 sheep being bred for research.

Raffat Azzo, a researcher with ICARDA who specializes in barley breeds, managed to save his entire collection of thousands of plant specimens as warplanes flew overhead. He hired a bus, onto which he loaded hundreds of boxes of different barley seed varieties. The journey to Lebanon involved crossing multiple front lines."It wasn't simple," Azzo recalls. But he believes it was worth the risk."The seeds we saved are now fighting climate change.

Source: Energy Industry News (energyindustrynews.net)

 

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