It ’s unmanageable to know what your bequest on this planet will be , but in 1879 when Michigan State University botanist William J. Beal started his Mary Jane germ experimentation , he probably did n’t think his contribution to scientific discipline would still be running 142 class and several contemporaries of plant scientist into the futurity . But the Beal seed viability experiment is trial impression that we can surprise ourselves .
Beal — who was a correspondent ofCharles Darwin , if that gives you any context for how long ago the experiment get down — was interested in how long the seed of a variety of different weed species could posture dormant in the ground before they fall behind their power to germinate .
We know seeds can live a long time in permafrost and in special seed repositing vaults , but Beal was concerned in how long cum could survive in the soil . So he planned a long - term field of study — averylong - term survey : He planted 20 dry pint bottles filled with sand and the seeds of 21 dissimilar common weed coinage in a secret belowground location on the Michigan State University campus , planning to dig up one bottle every five years until they escape out . And so he did , until he pull away in 1910 , at which item he passed the experiment along to a colleague , who passed it along down the line of Michigan State botanist — each genesis drawing out the time between exhumations to make the experiment last as long as possible .
At this point , a new bottleful of seeds is jab up every 20 years or so . The source study caretakers go out under the cover of dark , partly so nobody discover their trek to the hidden location and partly so the seeds wo n’t be exposed to the sun . After that , they take the dry pint bottle back to the laboratory and disperse the contents over sterile dirt to see which 1 germinate and grow . In 2000 , botanists Frank Telewski and Jan Zeevaart excavate and planted the seeded player in the fifteenth bottle , and only one species — moth mullein ( Verbascum blattaria ) — was successful .
The 16th bottle was supposed to be excavate in 2020 , but because ofCOVID-19restrictions , Telewski and the successor he nominated to take over the experiment after he retires wait until April of 2021 . The seeds in this bottle will undergo a series of experiment Beal could n’t have dream of : RNAand desoxyribonucleic acid studies , longevity experiment and possibly even investigating into resurrect seeds that would have been thought completely done for even 20 eld ago .
We ’ll have to wait and see what happen in the following weeks to retrieve out how many seeds actually germinate , though with four feeding bottle leave in the priming , the study itself is slate to go on for another 80 years .
