Doomsday Seed Vault Now Has Marijuana Seeds – Your Weed Will Survive The Apocalypse Even If You Don’t
Doomsday Seed Vault has already preserved multiple types of marijuana seeds to ensure their survival in case of Armageddon.
Buried inside a mountain on a remote Norwegian island, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is an ultra-secure facility that is harboring the most precious resource of our planet besides water. The vault, built in collaboration with agricultural institutions from around the world, has been commissioned to safeguard important crops in the event of global catastrophe. Now, the marijuana plant has made it to the list of crops that will be safeguarded for our future generations.
By preserving genetic material in an insulated, underground facility, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV) hopes to guard us against the permanent loss of plants. Humanity relies on these plants for food and medicine. It primary purpose is ensuring that the seeds and other genetic and organic material of such vegetation survive the apocalypse. These seeds can then be used to regenerate the crops or rehabilitate the planet after the annihilation.
Apart from thousands of seeds of various plants, Svalbard’s database reveals they are currently holding more than 21,500 cannabis seeds in the vault. Surprisingly, that’s more weed seeds than there are asparagus, blueberry or raspberry seeds currently being safeguarded at the facility. In fact, there are more marijuana genetics in the “Doomsday Seed Vault” than there are for artichoke, cranberry and pear combined, reported Marijuana.
Cannabis seeds from as many as 17 countries can be found in the SGSV. But surprisingly, North Korea has sent over 500 varieties of the marijuana seed, but what is even more surprising is that America still hasn’t deposited any pot seeds, reported Cannabis Business Times.
It’s critical for countries to deposit seeds primarily because they own them. While the government of Norway owns and operates the Svalbard Vault with assistance from the Nordic Genetic Research Center and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Global Crop Diversity Trust, the seeds are privately owned by the gene banks that stockpiled them there.
Opened in 2008, the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Germany and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center collectively deposited over 39 varieties of cannabis seeds.
The SGSV is a backup of the world’s 1,400 regular and active seed banks, and it is built to withstand an “extreme future,” assured Ola Westengen, Svalbard’s coordinator of operation and management. So, even though the legalization of marijuana is crawling at a snail’s pace, you can be assured of its survival in the future.
[Image Credit | SGSV]
