Native seed restoration is an ongoing project meant to scale up the collection, cultivation, and distribution of native plant seeds to meet California’s goal of conserving 30% of its land by 2030 and help ecosystems become more resilient to climate change. This week, we spoke with Mr. Pat Reynolds, Heritage Grower’s General Manager, about Heritage Growers, a non-profit that aims to reproduce native plants through farming. For a transcript, please visit https://climatebreak.org/native-seed-restoration-with-patrick-reynolds/
Native seed restoration aims to restore degraded ecosystems that sequester carbon, such as wetlands and riverbanks. Restoration increases climate resilience by re-establishing native plants adapted to local conditions, making landscapes more resistant to drought or fire, and strengthening overall ecosystem stability by increasing biodiversity. Heritage Growers is a California-based non-profit that has taken on this challenge, helping restore more than 20,000 acres of natural habitat statewide since its founding.
Heritage Growers was born from another habitat restoration project, River Partners. As River Partners grew, employees realized that the company was not always able to obtain “regionally appropriate” seeds for restoration projects, and, thus, Heritage Growers was created to fill this gap and help River Partners obtain seeds. Heritage Growers operates out of a 160-acre farm in Colusa, where plants are cultivated to “amplify” their genetic suitability to local conditions. Additionally, all seeds are of “known genetic origin,” meaning that Heritage Growers know where the seeds came from, and can ensure that they are locally-adapted and grown in California.
Heritage Growers’ process is labor and time intensive. The seeds often cannot be grown immediately or in bulk, so “seed specialists travel to scout the land for native seeds,” collecting part of what they find in the wild (Haas). The seeds are cleaned by hand, and tested in labs to determine quality. Finally, they can be grown under precise conditions, and harvested at the perfect time. Some seeds must be hand-picked, while others, like milkweed favored by monarch butterflies, can be over $1,000 per pound to produce.
One of Heritage Growers’ most significant achievements includes the “cultivation of 40,000 plants and 1,500 pounds of locally-adapted seeds for the historic Klamath River restoration.” For this specific restoration strategy, Heritage Growers planted the Klamath River banks with milkweed and other pollinator plants to promote biodiversity after “the largest dam removal project in US history.”
Native plants are vital to ecosystems because among many things, “they provide nectar for pollinators including hummingbirds, native bees, butterflies, moths, and bats” (Audubon). Additionally, the flora is a shelter for many types of fauna, while also acting as an important food source for them (Audubon). On top of this, native plants require much less water to plant and maintain than their exotic successors, which are often unsuited to the climate conditions in a given area.
Heritage Growers also collaborates with Native Californian communities, who have centuries-long histories of tending the land. The company works to integrate traditional ecological knowledge into their land cultivation efforts. Recently, it has worked with the Yurok tribe in Northern California to ensure the primary plant growth on a restored riverbank was native plants, not weeds. Heritage Growers also says that, unlike other companies that heavily guard genetic information, the non-profit is part of an effort to expand access to native plant information to encourage an increase in native seed restoration.
One issue with the process that Heritage Growers employs is that the recultivation of plants is extremely time intensive, sometimes taking years to obtain the correct quality and quantity. Additionally, native seeds are expensive to obtain even before cultivation works to increase the supply. and it is likely that climate-related variables like droughts, heat waves, and invasive species can affect the growth of the seeds. On top of this, there is limited infrastructure to produce enough native seeds at scale. Specifically, “the rising demand for seeds far outpaces the available supply” and there is simply not “enough wildland seed available to restore the land at the rate that the state has set out to” (The Guardian).
Reynolds emphasizes the importance of native plants in helping landscapes become more resilient to extreme weather conditions, benefit our food systems, and sequester carbon. He suggests that individuals support this initiative by planting native species in their own backyards as opposed to exotic plants.
Mr. Pat Reynolds, Heritage Grower’s General Manager, is a restoration ecologist who has more than 30 years of experience leading efforts that promote habitat restoration. Mr. Reynolds is also the Director of River Partners’ Native Seed and Plant Program. He sits on the board of the California Native Grasslands Association, the Yolo County Planning Commission, and is the Restoration Ecologist on the Science and Technical Advisory Committee for the Yolo County Habitat Agency.
For a transcript, please visit https://climatebreak.org/native-seed-restoration-with-patrick-reynolds/
Ethan: I’m Ethan Elkind, and you’re listening to Climate Break– climate solutions in a hurry. Today’s proposal? Restoring ecosystems with native plant seeds.
As climate change increases the likelihood of droughts, floods, and wildfires, the California nonprofit Heritage Growers is cultivating native plants that have already evolved to survive these extreme conditions. General manager Pat Reynolds explains:
Pat Reynolds: The seed that we produce has gone through droughts and floods and fires and has evolutionary relationships with climate, that’s in its DNA. That gives it the ability to adapt to a changing climate.
Ethan: Reynolds says that Heritage Growers knows exactly where their seeds come from, and can match plants to the ecosystems they’re meant to restore. That not only helps landscapes become more resilient to extreme weather, it benefits our food systems.
Pat Reynolds: Pollinators are specialists where they need existing native vegetation in order to be able to complete their lifecycle… And if we don't have native vegetation available for these insects… then we lose those, and we're gonna have less pollination for crops that we need.
Ethan: Native plants can also capture and store carbon in their roots, helping to offset greenhouse gas emissions. But scaling up cultivation takes time.
Pat Reynolds: Sometimes these projects are on a different timeline. They might give us a call six months in advance and say we want thousands of pounds of seeds. And then I have to go back and say well you should have contacted us… three or four years ago.
Ethan: Heritage Growers has already helped restore more than 20,000 acres of habitat statewide, supporting California’s goal to conserve 30% of the land by 2030. So what can listeners do to support?
Pat Reynolds: Plant native species, you can really substantially increase the habitat values in your own front yard.
Ethan: To learn more about native seed restoration, visit climatebreak.org.