Welcome to the world’s harshest environment; Polar Night in Svalbard.
Despite the freezing temperatures, howling winds and constant darkness, beneath my feet
there are plants which, come summer, will carpet the hills in flowers.
By understanding the tools which these plants use to survive, bioengineers are hoping to
create the next generation of crops, capable of surving in a changing world.
One group of plant having no trouble surviving in Svalbard are those living underneath this geodesic
dome created by Benjamin Vidmar, the founder of Polar Permaculture.
This farm is the only place that the residents of Svalbard residents access fresh food and
will give us an insight into what plants need to survive.
Here they are growing peas, tomatoes and basil, along with various other plants.
The dome protects them from high winds and freezing temperatures, while UV lamps installed
in the roof allow them to photosynthesise, even during the dead
of winter.
Compost, made from the waste of local restaurants, gives the plants nutrients.
Unfortunately for the native plants, its unlikely that someone like Ben is going to give them
a nice warm dome to live under.
Instead they’re going to have to learn how to look after themselves must look after themselves.
In order to experience the true conditions of polar winter, I’m heading outside the
town of Longyearbyn with my team of huskies.
During the winter months the extreme temperatures freeze the soil; making all of the water in
it turn to ice.
This is impossible for plants to grow through, so they need to wait until the summer months
in order to extend their roots.
Even then, only about 50 cm of soil melts.
This is what’s known as an active layer.
Because of limited nutrients and short growing season, arctic plants take on a perennial
lifestyle.
Establishing themselves one summer, making flowers the next, and then producing seeds.
In contrast our crop plants are annuals – doing all of that in the same year.
By comparing the DNA of perennial and annual plants, bioengineers were able to isolate
the genes responsible for their different lifestyles.
It was found that by deactivating the genes SOC1 and FUL they were able to change an annual
plant into a perennial one.
By changing these same genes in our crop plants we’ll be able to decrease the amount of
fertiliser that we need to grow our plants, and make them focus on more important parts
of their lifecycle – such as seed production.
The next challenge that our plants need to face is the extreme cold of an arctic winter,
which today we’ll be simulating with this bag of dry ice.
All plants and animals are made up of cells, which at their most basic are just a collection
of proteins suspended in solution and kept together with a thin membrane; just like this
water balloon.
Lets see what happens when we expose one of our cells to these arctic conditions for a
couple of hours.
As expected, the cold temperatures have frozen our balloon.
If instead I stuck my hand into the snow for a couple of hours, then the same thing would
happen with my own cells.
With winter temperatures of down to -20 degrees Celsius, frostbite is one of the most common
injuries here in Svalbard.
Luckily, I’ve brought some gloves.
Plants have evolved their own way of avoiding frostbite.
Since it’s the water freezing which causes the damage, rather than the cold temperatures
themselves, one method that plants employ in order to protect themselves from frost
damage is to simply remove that water.
That’s why you’ll see the leaves of tomatoes and spinach shrivel up during a frost.
Although this is reasonably effective, when water is absent, photosynthesis and other
vital processes can’t take place and the plant starts to die.
In cold climates, antifreeze is often added into car radiators in order to stop them freezing
over.
In order to see if that same thing will work for cells, I’ve filled this water balloon
with my own home-made antifreeze.
After a few hours our cell has definitely cooled down, but it still hasn’t frozen
over.
Arctic plants can create their own version of antifreeze; produced with the assistance of special genes. This allows their cells to continue
operating even at temperatures well below freezing.
By introducing an antifreeze-generating gene plants in the lab, researchers were able to
create a plant with much better cold resistance.
It’s since been shown to work with tomatoes, potatoes, and other economically important
crops.
Buried beneath my feet lies plants which will allow the crops of tomorrow to thrive in a
changing climate.
For now, they lie dormant, awaiting the day when the sun will finally rise above the horizon.
Signalling an end to the world’s longest night.