Image Number K8188-8

In one of the world's longest running experiments, California Institute of Technology professor F.W. Went arranged in 1937 to seal up 20 glass tubes of each of 120 different kinds of seeds. Each air-free tube carries the date it is to be opened and its contents checked for germination. Designed to last until the year 2307, the experiment was turned over to ARS' National Seed Storage Laboratory in Fort Collins, Colorado, in 1993.

Photo by Scott Bauer.

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