BEAL'S WORK CONTINUES

Knowledge sprouts from seed research

Frank Telewski, curator of Beal Botanical Garden, inspects the most recent germination results in an experiment initiated by botanist William J. Beal 120 years ago.

By Sue Nichols

Old seeds – really old seeds – may grow into answers for farmers, gardeners and others, thanks to the world's longest continuous experiment on seed germination.

Researchers at MSU are growing and examining seedlings that have sprouted from seeds buried 120 years ago on campus.

They've been doing this roughly every five years since 1879, when William J. Beal, a professor of botany at what then was Michigan Agricultural College, buried them in anticipation of learning how long seeds can remain viable.

It's more than just a curiosity, explained Frank Telewski, curator of MSU's Beal Botanical Garden.

"This information explains why there are so many weeds that can germinate in a freshly plowed field," Telewski said. "Plowing also mixes fresh seed into the deep seed bank."

This information is also of interest to plant ecologists who study regeneration of disturbed land from existing seed banks in soils.

If a site is disturbed by fire, flood, wind or anything else, vegetation can recover from the existing seeds in the soil, which can remain viable for years. The area doesn't need to have seeds blown in or carried in from other vegetated areas.

The 20 clear glass bottles containing 50 seeds of each of 20 different kinds of plants were mixed with sand and buried in the Beal Garden 20 inches below the soil with the mouths slanting downward so that water would not collect in them. A map was left diagramming their location for future scientists.

In April, a bottle was dug up by Telewski and Jan Zeevaart, professor of botany and plant pathology.

The original plan was to dig up a bottle every five years to test the seeds. However, in 1920 the interval was changed to 10 years to prolong the study, and in 1980 it was extended to 20 years.

The experiment represents the oldest continuing experiment at the nation's oldest agricultural college.

The bottle of seeds dug up in April has yielded only one species of plant – Verbascum blattaria, a weed commonly called moth mullein. However, the fact that moth mullein is the only one to survive the test of 120 years is not unexpected, Telewski said.

"It is the only plant to consistently germinate in all of the tests," he said. "It will be very interesting to see if the seeds will still germinate 20 years from now."

Five of the original 20 seed-containing bottles buried by Beal remain in their hidden location on the MSU campus. The slumber of the seeds will remain undisturbed until 2020, the 140th anniversary of Beal's experiment.