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About "Survival Seeds," "Seed Banks" and other Long-term Storage Products

Planted December 17, 1999
Last tended to on October 11, 2024
Reading time: 3 minutes

by Mike Dunton

Thoughts regarding “Doomsday Seed Collection”, “Survival Seed Banks” or other “Long-Term” seed products.

Have you been inundated with advertisements wanting to sell you a “Doomsday Seed Collection” or a “Survival Seed Bank?” Have you become concerned about current events, realize that society is fragile, and are interested in buying a large collection of seeds to add to your preparedness supplies? If you answered yes to either of these questions, do yourself a favor and please read on.

Although it is always wise to plan for future uncertainties, doing so irrationally out of fear is not. For as long as I can remember, non-seed professionals have emerged during times of societal unrest with an explicit intent of making money off of an unsuspecting and fearful public; usually novice or non-gardeners. During times of war this type of behavior is called profiteering, which I personally believe should be considered to be in the same category as looting.

Falling for this type of marketing hype and purchasing a “seed bank” collection of storage seeds really buys you nothing that you could not have purchased from your local garden center or from your favorite seed company. Additionally, if the purchase is being made with the intent of storing it on a shelf to be sown at some time in the future, you are effectively planning for failure. Do not wait for a life or death situation before planting your first garden.

Seeds Do NOT Last.

Seeds are designed to be planted and not stored for extremely long periods of time. Although myths circulate about people finding ancient caches of seeds that miraculously still germinate and grow, any home gardener will tell you that this is pure fiction. Getting old seeds that they stored in their garage for a few years, let alone 1,000 years in a cave in the desert, is impossible. Likewise, salespeople trying to convince you that they use some special techniques to prepare the seeds that they are offering in such a way that they will survive 100 years or some other such claim, is nonsense as well.

Seed scientists using modern technology and carefully developed, species-dependent procedures, can prepare seeds to be stored in cryostasis in facilities called gene or seed banks. However in practical terms, these techniques and the necessary equipment are not readily available to the general public. And these facilities still schedule grow outs on a regular basis to ensure that the seed samples remain viable and fresh.

Learn now, not later.

Like any complex set of skills, it takes time to develop the abilities to produce and store your own food. The learning curve for this particular set of skills is measured in seasons and years. The sooner that you begin incorporating gardening into your everyday lifestyle, the better.

To be a sustainable exercise in self-sufficiency, you will also need to learn to produce, save, and properly store your own seed stock. By learning these skills, you not only ensure that you have the ability to produce your own food in the short-term, you will be increasing your odds of maintaining a fresh supply of the seeds needed to feed yourself, your loved ones and your community indefinitely.

Learn more about …

• Storing seeds
• Seed Germination Testing

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