The need for a store of genetically diverse seed is well know, and there is a problem. However, genetic engineering may help. In fact one may be able to do it at home soon. :) But this seems biased, possibly there's some hidden agenda here? For instance: > survival. For one reason, whenever one of the inevitable plant > plagues sweeps across huge swaths of land, even across whole > countries, biodiversity is the way we find those varieties that > are resistant. We're not going to find them if they lie aging in the > jars and freezers of corporate labs. Ask the Irish about the > Irish potato famine and the millions who died from that plant fungal > plague. A rich, biodiverse genetic heritage almost ensures > that protected pockets of resistant plants will stand like oases in > virtual deserts of destruction. From these we have historically > bred new seed stock. Presumably during the Irish Famine there was much _more_ of a "rich, biodiverse genetic heritage" then, at least according to this article. Don't recall that it helped the Irish much? "Hey! O'Reilly, do have some of that famine resistant potato stock #STI 1283? I need some quick!" It's a fallacious example. Don't take this stuff as science, it is not. But again, there is definitely a need to preserve and make publicly available plant germplasm. Riley