Armed with shovels, gloves and headlights, the team followed their map to the excavation site. The atmosphere was “very pirate,” said Dr. Weber. Dr. Telewski began to dig a neat square hole.
But while they cut deeper and wider, there were no bottles to be found. “The birds started to chirp,” said Dr. Weber, and the sun threatened to blow their cover. “Morale was low.”
When Dr. Beal first buried the seed bottles, he planned to have one excavated every five years, and the experiment would last a century. But as time went on, the executives extended the period between excavations to 10 years and then 20 years. Two of these have been delayed somewhat: the one from 1919 was moved to the spring of 1920 – of which Dr. Telewski suspects it may be related to the 1918 flu; and that from 2020 has been moved to this year, due to Covid-19-related campus downtimes.
To keep the thread from being lost in these decades, a sort of seed keeper ministry has developed in the state of Michigan, with each generation of botanists passing the torch to younger colleagues.
Dr. Telewski – professor of plant biology at the university and the seventh person in charge of the experiment – dug up his first seed bottle in 2000 with his predecessor, Jan Zeevaart, who died in 2009. his own mortality, he gave a copy of the card to David Lowry, an associate professor of plant biology who had expressed an interest in joining.
Just a few months later, Dr. Telewski suffered a stroke. While he has since recovered, “it showed me how delicate it is to deliver these things and keep them secret,” said Dr. Lowry. Soon after, Dr. Telewski Dr. Weber, who is an assistant professor at the university, and Dr. Brudvig to join in too.
Over the years, Dr. Beal developed a mystical patina. Dr. Beal dug up each new bottle under cover of darkness, not to be dramatic, but just to protect the other bottled seeds from sunlight, which could allow them to germinate before their time, said Dr. Telewski. (The team uses green lights in their headlights for the same reason.)