Plants grown from lentils discovered during a dig in Kütahya and believed to be thousands of years old will soon be planted, scientists have announced.
Speaking to the press, Dr. Nüket Bingöl of the biology department at Dumlupınar University said the lentils, which were found in the Seyitömer district during a dig by the university’s archaeology department, were germinated four months ago using a tissue culture method. “We have in hand 17 [plants grown from the] 4,000-year-old lentils,” he said. “Now we’re going to plant our sprouts in the field and try to get seeds from them. … Our plants are living in a sterile environment, but we don’t know what will happen when they’re planted in the field.”
Bingöl stated that Dumlupınar was working in cooperation with other Turkish universities on this project and that they planned to conduct DNA analyses and other scientific evaluations of the lentil plants as they grew, seeing a critical opportunity to analyze the characteristics of plants from millennia ago. The seeds found at the Seyitömer site will pave the way for further research in the field of genetically modified foods and the organic food movement, as scientists say the seeds display morphological differences from the lentil plants of today. An archaeological team from Dumlupınar University had found a container holding seeds during an excavation in Seyitömer. While many were burned and useless, three of them were not and formed the basis for the current project.
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-207992-100-4000-year-old-lentils-ready-to-be-planted-in-kutahya.html