CANFA Comment

8 Aug: London
Since my last report we had a flight back to London, everything was going to plan, quick trip to the airport and early arrival in London until we hit the M5 and sat on it for 6 hours because of an accident that had happened the day before! All the motorists were very pleasant about it though.

As a consequence we were late (arrived 6 pm) to visit the Millenium seed bank but Robin who runs it stayed behind to met us and also arranged some food and drinks for us for which we were very appreciative as some only had breakfast and hadn't eaten the biscuit they gave us on the plane. It was a very interesting stop and well worth the visit. After an introduction presentation we toured the labs and where the seeds are stored. Thirty thousand (30,000) species in the vaults makes it the largest live plant diversity per square metre than anywhere else on earth. The buildings are first class.

After arriving at the hotel here at 11pm were went down the street and had a meal in a Chinese restaurant. We had a day off yesterday and people did there own things. Heard on the news about some riots but they were not near us. Ray and I, along with Graig and Helen caught the 'big bus' (double decker open top) and toured the city. We got off at the tower of London and caught a cruise down the Thames to Big Ben, had traditional fish and chips in the rain on the banks of the river. London is a fanastic city, lots of tourists but everyone happy.

Highlights of the Seed Bank visit:
* 80% of plant based food intake comes from 12 domesticated plant species, 8 cereals and 4 tubers
* Drying seeds down by 1% relative humidity doubles the life of the seed and once dried every 5 degrees drop in temperature doubles the life again. Some seeds could be stored for a thousand years.
* We saw an X-ray machine that can detect internal insect infection.

Anne and Ray Williams