Anonymous #1 11w

Oooo who is he?

1

Anonymous stoner22 11w

He’s my hero. He was a Soviet agricultural scientist who devoted his life to preserving genetically diverse crop lineages to prevent famine. He discovered the hotspots for plant domestication, which we call Vavilov Centers. He discovered that crops like rye and oats originated as weeds who mimicked crop plants, eventually becoming crop plants themselves which we call Vavilovian Mimicry.

8

Anonymous #1 11w

He created the world’s first seed bank in Leningrad. He wanted to preserve genetically diverse and useful crops from all over the world in case of disease or natural disaster. But he was imprisoned in a Gulag by Stalin for disagreeing with Trofim Lysenko, a quack who believed in a neo-Lamarckian collectivist evolution that could take place within single generations. Lysenko’s ideas aligned with collectivist ideas so Stalin backed him.

7

Anonymous #1 11w

Vavilov starved to death in a Siberian gulag in 1943. His colleagues in Leningrad maintained the seed vault through the siege of Leningrad. Many starved to death in the process, surrounded by edible stored seeds. But when the spring came, the seeds from that vault were used to plant crops in every open patch of ground in the city. He is why we have seed banks today, and the descendants of the seeds he collected are still used.

5

Anonymous #1 11w

He is my hero. He devoted his life for what was true and for the good of humanity. And he paid the ultimate price for it.

6

Anonymous #1 11w

Wow. I love him so much. And his colleagues are based.

4

Anonymous stoner22 11w

It’s insane how dedicated these people were. At one point just before the siege his colleagues were collecting potatoes from experimental plots as bombs fell around them.

4

Anonymous #1 11w

The dude also spoke 15 languages and went into parts of the Zagroz mountains in Iran that are difficult to survive with breathing equipment. He was devoted to crop and plant science.

5