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	Podcast:		Local Features by WXPR
	Episode:		The Importance of Seed Banks in an Uncertain Future
	Category:		Government & Organizations
	Duration:		00:05:41
	Publish Date:		2019-02-12 05:00:00
	Description:		In this month's installment of Field Notes , Susan Knight discusses the importance of seedbanks - in the past and in the future - for the survival of our food crops in an uncertain future. One of my work projects is learning and writing about wild rice, and I got to thinking about preserving wild rice seed into the future. This led me back to an old Field Notes story about Soviet genetics. In this earlier Field Notes, I told the story of Lysenko, a Soviet pseudo-scientist who rejected the emerging science of genetics, and instead insisted that organisms could hold onto traits they had acquired and pass them on to future generations. Lysenko and his proponents claimed they could turn rye into wheat and wheat in barley, and that weeds could spontaneously turn into food grains. This is patently ridiculous, but because Joseph Stalin liked the ideas, all scientists in opposition were imprisoned or killed. I told this story as a cautionary tale of politics interfering with science. There
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