YAKUTSK, May 6. /TASS/. Russia's state reserve agency, Rosrezerv, plans an experiment to store for a long time the nation's strategic reserve food products in a cryostorage of the Institute for Biological Problems of Cryolithozone and the Permafrost Institute (the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch) in Yakutsk, the Institute for Biological Problems of Cryolithozone's chief researcher, Professor Boris Kershengolts, told TASS.
"We have received a request from Rosreserv's Research Institute for Storage Problems, which develops scientific approaches for the federal system to preserve long-term various food products and materials as the Russian Federation's strategic reserve. We are talking about testing technologies for a long-term storage of strategic food reserves in a joint cryo preservation facility of the Institute for Biological Problems of Cryolithozone of the Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch and the Permafrost Institute of the Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch. We have signed an agreement with the institute and we are waiting for a team of specialists to come to Yakutsk to discuss further details," he said.
According to Rosreserv standards, strategic storage means the complete safety of products over at least five years. "We will monitor the samples for five years. Positive results would mean the country would need a separate cryostorage for the strategic food reserve," the scientist noted.
Back in the 1950s, part of the USSR strategic food reserve was stored in tunnels near Yakutsk, in the location where presently is the museum of ice sculptures, he continued. "People, who have lived in Yakutsk for long, know about it perfectly well. When in the late 1970, there was a shortage of food products as well as supply disruptions, Yakutsk shops were selling meat products, where labels read they had been stored since "1950 - 1956". We can say with confidence that the products were stored in permafrost with preserved quality for at least 20-25 years," the professor said.
Strategic reserve
Rosreserv has expressed interest in a permafrost storage facility with controlled temperature and humidity, the expert said. Yakut scientists, led by the Permafrost Institute's Doctor of Technical Sciences Georgy Kuzmin, have developed a technology to store natural winter cold to create stable freezing temperatures in permafrost's mines that are optimal for preservation of plant seeds. Due to this technology, the temperature at 8-10 degrees below zero remains year round.
"Our colleagues have conducted mathematical modeling and organized additional tunnels around the main storage, through which cold gets inside in winter. In spring, summer and autumn, when the air temperature in the main storage is rising, specialists bring in the frost stored in winter. Automatic sensors regulate the air temperature," he added.
In his opinion, Central Yakutia with the inhabited part of the planet's lowest-temperature permafrost and lowest winter temperatures is optimal for cryostorages of the kind. "The natural cold does not require additional expensive, unreliable, eco-unfriendly and dependent artificial cooling," the scientist explained.
A unique collection
The world's first experimental cryostorage for plant seeds in the permafrost column appeared under the Permafrost Institute's building in Yakutsk more than 45 years ago. In the late 1970s, at a depth of about 11 meters in the thickness of permafrost rocks, for the first time in the world, the Academy of Sciences' Institute of Biology conducted an experiment of a long-term storage of legume seed samples, where they used the permafrost's cold resource.
The current cryo bank was built in 2012 inside an old mine of the Permafrost Institute. The storage with a capacity of up to 100,000 samples contains 11,500 plant seeds, where about 10,000 are doublets of the national collection, presented by the Vavilov Institue. They have been stored for more than 45 years.
"At certain intervals, we check their physiological and sowing properties, and the genome preservation. Everything has been fine for 45 years now. Normally, the maximum long-term storage in the planet's all plant seed genetic banks without replanting makes 15-20 years. When those periods expire, the seeds must be sown. The preservation of seeds in the Yakutsk cryostorage is more than 80%," the scientist said.
This method for a long-term storage of plant seeds is recognized as reliable and independent of accidents, natural and man-made disasters, autonomous and practically energy-free. The 45-years-long seed storage has proven that this technology is highly effective in terms of seed safety. "This experiment has to be expanded to ensure Russia's food and environmental security," the professor said.
The cryostorage is one of infrastructure projects of the world-class scientific and educational center North: Territory of Sustainable Development. To support it, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education has organized at the Center a youth laboratory to study Yakut plants' gene pool.