One of the World’s Longest-Running Experiments Sends Up Sprouts

May 11, 2021.David Lowry was impatient for the very old seeds to wake up. Back in 1879, the botanist William James Beal plucked that seed and thousands of others from different weedy plants in and around East Lansing, Mich. He then stashed them in bottles and buried them in a secret spot on the Michigan State campus, with the goal of learning whether they'd still grow after years, decades or even centuries of dormancy. In the coming weeks, they will give all the bottle's seeds additional cues that could spur them to sprout: a cold treatment, a smoke bath and a spray with a plant growth hormone. Margaret Fleming, a postdoctoral researcher and a member of the team, said that the seeds' eagerness to germinate demonstrates their health. The core of the experiment will remain the same - seeds, bottles, time - but there are a few things this group aims to do differently, to protect their successors from the confusion and temptation they currently face. Stringent protocols for seed identification will also help them ensure they don't mix up species like Dr. Beal did. While the new experiment, like the original, will have some invasive, weedy plants, it will also include native plants and some that are known to have unusual germination cues, like smoke and cold.