Crop diversity Diversity Biodiversity Commentary

Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov ecology

Crop diversity

• Nikolai Vavilov identified eight centers
• of the greatest diversity of crop species
• which he thought were their centers of origin.
• He organized expeditions that collected seeds
• from all around the world.
• He established a seed bank in Leningrad
• for the world’s largest collection of seeds.
• He set up 115 experimental stations across
• the Soviet Union to grow crops from these seeds.
• He was proponent of Mendel’s laws of inheritance,
• but the head of Soviet agriculture,
• Trofim Leysenko, was a Lamarckian,
• who claimed that an acquired characteristic
• in a variety of wheat would be inherited,
• so he had Vavilov denounced and arrested
• to die in Stalin’s prison.

Diversity

• Vavilov knew
• we need to preserve
• the genetic diversity
• of food crops.
• He was a victim
• of an effort
• to suppress
• dissent.

Biodiversity

• Among the seeds protected
• in the Vavilov seed bank
• is a yellow potato that looks like you.
• Its color doesn’t matter,
• only its inner soul—its soul
• that survives ridicule, that thrives
• in cold summers and salty soil,
• and that can grow when thrown
• into a ditch beside the road.