Innovation Anthology #537:

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The Oil Sands Vegetation Cooperative expects the seeds it is banking for future reclamation to be viable for anywhere from six to thirty years.

But how can you know for sure that seed banking work?

Plant ecologist Ann Smreciu of Wildrose Consulting addressed that question at the recent CONRAD Symposium on oil sands reclamation.

ANN SMRECIU: Seed science is a very old science. And lots of work has been done worldwide on classifying plants by the types of seeds that they have. And learning how to store seed is something that has been done. For instance, Kew Garden in England, has a very knowledgeable staff. And one of their staff actually is now actually working here in Alberta on this with us. And that’s kind of exciting. And the other thing now is we have a research program associated with this cooperative and looking at the best storage conditions under which to store each of the individual species. And also the longevity. What kind of dormancy they have and what kind of moisture content before we store them, that sort of thing. So there’s a research component to this as well.

According to Ann Smreciu, once cleaned, the seeds of these boreal trees, bushes and wildflowers will be frozen and stored in a bunker at minus 18 degrees.

Thanks today to Syncrude

I’M CHERYL CROUCHER

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Syncrude

Program Date: 2013-02-26