Seed and Season

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Seeds

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Seeds

2 stories

Why some seeds cannot go into a freezer

Drying lets many seeds survive a seed bank's −20°C freezer. Acorns lose viability when dried too far, yet can be injured by freezing while wet. Carefully prepared embryo tissue offers another route, with recovery still to prove.

The wait inside a dormant seed

An unsprouted seed may be dead, or it may be reading a season. Seed coats, embryos and changing conditions make those two silences hard to tell apart.