Summary
This report describes the first phase of an examination of some of the nation’s needs for native plant seeds (a shorthand term to include all forms of native propagative plant material) and of the capacity to meet those needs. Across the United States, millions of acres of land have been so disturbed by human activities or severe climate events that significant portions of their native plant communities have been lost and their ecosystems have been seriously compromised. Restoring impaired ecosystems requires a supply of diverse native plant seeds that are well suited to the climates, soils, and other living species of the system. Native seeds are also in demand for applications in urban land management, roadside maintenance, conservation agriculture, and other restorative activities that take into account the connection between native plant communities and the increasingly urgent need for resilient landscapes. Given the varied climatic and environmental niches of the more than 17,000 native plant species of the United States, supplying the desired seed types and species mixes for this wide range of activities is a challenge. There has never been a nationwide analysis of the full scope of needs for native plant seeds and how well they are being met. This report is an initial step in that direction.
In 2017 twelve federal agencies established the National Seed Strategy, an agreement to support ecological restoration by addressing the accessibility and use of native seed. Part of the motivation for the strategy came from Hurricane Sandy, which in 2012 struck the Eastern seaboard from Florida to Maine, leaving damaged coastal wetlands and forests for which the scarcity of native plant resources impeded restoration. Another impetus was the increasing destructiveness of wildfires, fueled by invasive cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), in the sagebrush steppe of the intermountain West. The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages millions of acres of sagebrush steppe, has played a leadership role in the National Seed Strategy. In 2019 the BLM requested the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to undertake an assessment of federal, state, tribal, and private sector needs for native plant seeds and to explore the seed industry’s ability to supply those needs as well as public- and private-sector approaches to improving the supply. Focused primarily on the western United States, where frequent wildfire and other disturbances are important drivers of the demand for seed, but also introducing information about the rest of the country, the assessment will examine the frequency, scale, and diversity of uses of seeds of native plants, including native trees and shrubs. The assessment will identify entities that make up the native seed supply chain, describe how well native seed users and suppliers communicate their needs and offerings, respectively, and examine barriers to meeting user needs. In the course of its work, the committee will identify opportunities to increase the size and efficacy of the native seed supply.
A committee of experts appointed by the National Academies is conducting the assessment in two phases, as directed by the committee’s statement of task (Chapter 1, Box 1-1). In this report of the first phase, the committee describes the participants in the native plant seed supply chain, makes preliminary observations, and proposes an information-gathering plan for the second phase of the assessment.
COMPONENTS OF THE NATIVE SEED SUPPLY CHAIN
Seed Buyers and Users
The largest buyers in the market for native plant seeds are public land and wildlife stewardship agencies, such as the BLM, U.S. Forest Service (USFS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), tribal nations, National Park Service (NPS), and U.S. Department of Defense, which collectively manage more than 640 million acres of land. The BLM buys hundreds of thousands to millions of pounds of seed annually, depending on the extent of wildland fires in a given year.
Federal agencies cooperate with each other by sharing research, small-scale seed cleaning and seed banking infrastructure, plant germplasm development, and related activities. Many are signatories to the National Seed Strategy and are represented on the federal liaison committee to the Plant Conservation Alliance, a public–private partnership whose goal is to ensure that native plant populations and their communities are maintained, enhanced, and restored.
The use of seeds from native plants is generally necessary for landscape restoration on federal land or else is, in the case of some multiple-use public lands agencies (e.g., BLM), strongly encouraged. Some agencies (e.g., USFS, NPS) further require or encourage that the native plant seeds used in restoration projects be derived from populations growing in natural environments similar to the locations where they will be used, reflecting the recognition that widespread native species often comprise a range of genetic variability adapted to different climates and soils.
Local governments (states, counties, and municipalities) use native seeds on their lands following disturbances (e.g., fires, hurricanes, floods), for roadside maintenance, for the creation of green infrastructure such as stormwater management, for the enhancement of wildlife habitat and pollinator resources, to control invasive species encroachment, and to improve urban ecosystems and parkland. These governments frequently work with developers and landscape designers in planning the use of native plants in their jurisdictions.
Private users of native seeds include ranchers and farmers, rural and urban home landscapers, homeowner associations, and companies involved in energy development and resource extraction. Many nonprofit groups use native seed in managing land for conservation, including The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and its collaborators, local and regional conservancies, and land trusts. Private restoration contractors conduct work for both the public and private sectors. Finally, there are public–private partnerships to reclaim abandoned industrial sites and farmland, create wildlife corridors, and restore other degraded landscapes.
One fundamental concern identified by the committee is that many practitioners of ecological restoration are interested in obtaining native seeds that meet certain specifications: first, representing as many species as possible of the plant community at a restoration site and, second, representing the internal genetic variation within each species, typically by being derived from seed stock that is collected either near the restored site or in the same climatic zone as the site. The National Seed Strategy refers to such seed as “genetically appropriate,” but for this report the more value-neutral term “provenance-specific” (where provenance means geographic seed source) is used. Provenance-specific seed is a product that is distinct from some cultivated varieties of native seed on the “manipulated track” (see below) which are intended to be usable over wide geographic areas. The demand for provenance-specific native seed is inherently harder
to meet than the demand for widespread cultivars since the supply of provenance-specific seeds must be more closely tailored to the end-user’s specifications.
Seed Collectors, Developers, Growers, and Consolidators
Native seed finds its way to users through many different pathways and steps, but all native seed originates from collections of material taken from populations of wild-growing native plants. The protocol used in collecting the original material, the location in which it was collected, and how it is handled or manipulated afterwards are all determinants of the genetic identity of the seed product.
For most native grasses and forbs (i.e., herbaceous flowering plants that are not grasses), the purpose of wildland collections is to provide foundation seed “for increase” (that is, planted in cultivated fields in order to produce a larger quantity of seed) before their ultimate use. However, for some restoration projects the native seed used is obtained directly from wild-growing plants. This is the case when the amount of seed needed can be met from species capable of copious seed production in the wild. In addition, some native plants cannot be grown economically under cultivation, so collecting seeds from wild populations is the only way to obtain them. Large-scale (that is, covering hundreds to thousands of acres) and small-scale (a few acres) wildland seed collection is conducted by both public and private entities.
For most plant species the specimens that have been formally collected from the wild and made available to the native seed industry do not represent the full range of genetic diversity contained among wild populations of these plants. The Seeds of Success program is the largest coordinated effort to collect diverse native species and populations for seed banking, research, plant materials development, and ecological restoration. Established in 2001, Seeds of Success is led by BLM. At least 50 nonprofit institutions, mainly botanic gardens, collect seed directly for the program or identify contractors that collect seed for BLM. To date, over 25,000 accessions (unique samples of seed) have been collected from more than 43 states, with the focus of the collections being on the more common species that are likely to be the most useful in restoration.
Accessions of native plant seed have been collected for many years by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the plant materials centers of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the U.S. Forest Service, universities, extension programs, and private agronomists and horticulturalists. After characterization in test gardens, some accessions may be subjected to selection and breeding for desired traits, which places them on the “manipulated track” for seed certification and labeling purposes. Evaluation of those plants for notable characteristics—such as good establishment, vigor, and seed production—that are shown to be heritable and stable allows them to be named as (manipulated-track) cultivars and germplasm releases. The accessions grown in test gardens without any further manipulation are designated “natural track.” Some natural-track accessions will have only the location of their collection and their species designation recorded. These will be certified and labeled as a source-identified germplasm release. Other accessions may be further studied and described and, if found to have characteristics that are heritable and stable, may also be released as (natural-track) cultivars and germplasm releases.
The NRCS plant materials centers have developed, produced, and stored foundation seed of conservation germplasm releases and cultivars that have resulted in seed production by commercial growers valued at more than $100 million annually, providing a major component of the native seed industry. These seeds are generally intended to be usable over broad geographic
areas, and many are widely used. However, they do not always match the preferences of practitioners of ecological restoration seeking provenance-specific seed that they anticipate will be better suited to establishment conditions and to maintaining biodiversity at a restoration site.
Large-scale field cultivation of native seeds is most common in the Western United States where seed demand by public land management agencies after wildfires drives the market. Field production also occurs in the Midwest, East, and South to meet regional needs. Seed suppliers in the native seed industry defy singular description and are specialized to some extent with respect to the particular species they grow, their production capacity, their relationships with collectors and growers, and their business models. Some collectors and producers have their own cleaning and bagging equipment and may market their seed directly to end users. Others deliver bulk or uncleaned seed on an ad hoc or contract basis to seed warehouses and vendors for cleaning, packaging, labeling, storing and shipping. Some vendors consolidate many different lots of seed from varied sources for larger wholesale and retail native seed markets.
Intermediaries: Permitting, Testing, Certification, Contracting, and Storage
Permits are required for collecting seed on public lands, and permitting procedures may vary among offices of the same land management agency. Permitting offices vary in their approaches to monitoring and facilitating seed collectors. Permission for collecting seed on private land is also required.
Federal and state laws require seed testing and labeling for all seed sold to an end user. Seed analysis is carried out by government and commercial laboratories following the rules of the Association of Official Seed Analysts; the analysis reports the percentage, by weight, of the pure seed units of the main species in a sample as well as their percent viability. The percentages of seed of other species (including weeds) and of inert matter are also reported. For buyers this information as reported on the seed label is essential for the proper use of the seed (e.g., seeding rates) as well as for providing accurate expectations concerning the germination of the seed. Test results play a role in the negotiations between buyer and seller on the price of the seed. For many native species testing techniques and rules have not yet been developed, and this lack of established testing procedures can lead to delays, increased costs, and inconsistencies between testing labs.
Seed analysis does not verify the identity of the seed. This is accomplished by a separate process—seed certification, which uses collection site and field inspections, cleaning, and other inspections and records to ensure that the seed in the container, as listed on a certification tag, is the species, variety, or germplasm claimed, whether it was collected from the wild for direct use or field produced. Labels may provide state, county, elevation and other geographic descriptions of the collection site. Seed certification is not required by law, but for many seed users the information provided is of central importance to decision making about the suitability of the seed for the restoration site.
The preference of certain seed users for certified seed of a specific origin or designation is frequently satisfied through procurement procedures and contracts, which connect users with suppliers and are an integral part of the supply chain. Purchases by agencies must follow government procedures (notably the U.S. Federal Acquisition Regulation) which typically require competitive bidding to meet specified contract terms.
Depending on how the seed is produced, contract terms for native seed typically dictate the species, quantities, and delivery timing, and they may also include specifications for the
degree of genetic diversity required, seed origin location, seed certification, and seed wild collection procedures. Contracts to purchase delivered seed place all the production risk on the supplier. In contrast, contracts to support a seed production process, typically on an ongoing basis, often contain provisions for risk sharing between the buyer and supplier. To ensure a continuous supply of native seeds, the BLM has recently begun to use an indefinite delivery/quantity contract; the USFS relies on a blanket purchase order available to all federal agencies. These contracts contain provisions for producers to receive fixed crop establishment fees, regardless of ultimate yields, reducing the burden of production risk on the supplier.
Seed for near-term use is frequently housed in warehouses under ambient conditions. Because seed longevity is enhanced by low temperatures and low humidity, parts of the arid western United States (e.g., Utah, Nevada, eastern Oregon) provide more effective ambient seed storage than warmer or more humid regions. Long-term storage requires conditions and special facilities not normally available to seed companies. The BLM has a total storage capacity for 2.6 million pounds of seed, with refrigerated storage at three warehouses with a total capacity of 135,000 pounds. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources maintains a large seed warehouse with ambient and refrigerated storage capacity for about 1 million pounds. There appear to be no comparable native seed warehouses east of the Mississippi River.
Small amounts of seed of numerous species are kept in long-term storage in seed banks, or conservation collections. Seed can remain viable for many years under subzero conditions, either in mechanical freezers or liquid nitrogen containers, or at slightly higher temperatures; maintaining seed at these higher temperature facilitates its distribution and use and is more suited for active collections. Seed banking at the federal level is largely carried out by USDA’s National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS), which has historically focused on safeguarding the genetic diversity of agriculturally important plants, including some native species and wild relatives of crops. Seed banking of wild plants for revegetation is relatively new and is growing in importance. Many accessions collected by Seeds of Success are stored and distributed in NPGS seed banks. Botanic gardens and similar institutions add some storage capacity to the federal system, often as a mix of long-term conservation collections and active collections for restoration and research.
Ancillary Influences: Funding, Policy, Research, Guidance, and Advocacy
Government agencies, policies, programs, land planners, landscape architects, university researchers, and seed associations affect the use of native seeds through various mechanisms, including (1) policies and funds that support the use of native plants, (2) guidance on which species to use, (3) basic and applied restoration research, and (4) tools to facilitate decision making. Examples of these ancillary influences include the National Seed Strategy and state and regional native plant materials development programs to support native seed use in restoration; the Burned Area Emergency Response Program and Burned Area Rehabilitation funds for postfire assistance; the U.S. Department of Transportation’s funds and guidance for state highway departments; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s clean water policies, funds, and guidance for seed transfer; the NRCS Conservation Technical Assistance Program for participants in USDA conservation programs; the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture’ support of university researchers and the intramural research programs of USDA (including the ARS, USFS, and NRCS), and the U.S. Geological Survey. Finally, trade
associations such as the Western Seed Association and American Seed Trade Association advocate for the seed industry.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS
Discussions by the NASEM committee with participants in the native seed enterprise uncovered some of the factors that affect the performance of the seed supply chain. Preliminary observations about these factors are discussed below. They are called “preliminary” because additional information is needed to confirm or correct them. Refining an understanding of these and other issues related to the seed supply will be the goal of the next phase of the assessment and will be the basis for the conclusions and recommendations in the committee’s final report.
Observation 1. Users have varied objectives and needs.
Some users of native seed are interested in restoring native ecosystems, focusing on biodiversity and function. Others have different functional goals, such as providing specific plants for pollinators or for production value, such as rangeland forage.
Given the diverse objectives and motivations for native seed use, the committee seeks to understand whether and how the needs are met by current supply channels. One specific question is how demand for provenance-specific seed and for more choices of seed from different seed zones and localities interacts with the market for native seed of other kinds, such as for seed of the same species but with origins outside the ecoregion in which it will be used or for the cultivars that are currently used in many applications.
Observation 2. The seed market in the western United States is strongly affected by decision making by the large land management agencies, such as the BLM and USFS.
Federal land management agencies strongly influence the market for native seeds. In the BLM, post-fire seeding has generally emphasized grass-dominated mixes for soil stabilization and for preventing the establishment of invasive species, rather than using the sorts of diverse mixes designed for longer-term ecological restoration. Records of BLM’s consolidated seed buys (purchases made on behalf of BLM field offices) show an ongoing reliance on non-natives and cultivars and a limited, but increasing, use of provenance-specific natives.
The USFS has in recent years reduced its post-fire seeding, reflecting policy decisions to avoid non-native seeds and to not seed areas considered capable of regenerating naturally. Although expanded native seed restoration is recognized as a critical component of some USFS activities, there is no agency-wide native plant restoration program.
The committee is interested in understanding more about the determinants of seed choice and restoration decisions in these agencies, which vary among agencies and even within their different agency divisions (e.g., BLM field offices, USFS districts).
Observation 3. Timeframe, quantity, and quality strongly limit the overlap between what seed is available and what seed is desired.
Both the BLM and USFS policies emphasize the use of native seed, but substitutions are allowed and are common in the BLM. Much of these agencies’ demand for native seed arises
suddenly in response to large wildfires or other large-scale events, and these large and reactive needs are harder to meet than proactively planned needs. Some of the seed demand may be met by the agencies’ own inventories, but large fires create the need for rapid procurement of large quantities from commercial sources, and the scale and urgency of the demand are likely to affect prices and availability. Given that wildland fires and other large-scale events will continue to be important drivers of seed demand, the committee will explore the problem of timeframe and urgency as they relate to the availability of native seed.
Observation 4. Seed choices do not always support restoration success, and outcomes do not always inform choices.
On public lands in the western United States, where many very large-scale seeding projects have taken place, it is common for many species to fail to become established, especially in hotter and drier locations. Seeds that are not well matched to the local climate contribute to seeding failure along with such factors as poor site preparation and planting methods, bad timing, unfavorable weather, weeds, and fire and drought cycles. This committee is interested in how seed choices influence the success of restoration and to what extent information on success feeds back into seed choices.
Grasses are often chosen for seeding after wildland fires. Many grasses tend to germinate readily, grow quickly, and compete strongly with other plants, and many cultivars and releases are selected for these characteristics. However, these attributes may lead seeded grasses, particularly exotic grass cultivars, to inhibit the establishment of seeded natives or slow the recovery of natives at the site. Grasses do not meet all of the needs of wildlife and pollinators, nor do they perform many of the essential ecological functions of shrubs and forbs. Although shrubs and forbs are increasingly added to seed mixes, large quantities of seed are available for only a few species.
Observation 5. The budgets and seed specifications of users vary greatly, as do the unit costs of suppliers.
The budgets available to native seed users appear to vary tremendously, as does the mix of native plant attributes that buyers seek. Users’ budgets may be affected by their funding source, timeframe, project location (urban versus rural), project scale, project priority, and whether the project has legal requirements (for example, restoration following resource extraction). Across all native seed buyers with their range of budget levels and purchase objectives, the willingness to pay for native seeds ranges from a high willingness for buyers with well-funded projects with specific restoration objectives to a low willingness for less well-funded projects with more flexible objectives. More information is needed about the range of factors that shape buyer willingness to pay for different seed types.
Observation 6. Seed procurement may be hampered by market volatility, risk, and contract structure.
More information is needed about the behaviors of buyers and sellers of native seed under different procurement scenarios. There are features of the native seed market that economic theory predicts will make it quite volatile. Some suppliers collect wildland seed or
produce seed in cultivated fields speculatively, without a contract, in an attempt to anticipate highly uncertain future demand for specific species.
Market volatility is affected by the timing of the demand for seed. The interactions between the multi-year seed production cycles and the demand for seed, including the extent to which storage is used currently and the potential for its expansion, are essential in assessing market risks. However, many prospective and current growers are unwilling or unable to bear the risks of producing native seeds or of carrying inventories in the face of uncertain demand or the uncertain availability of funding for buyers in federal agencies.
One question regarding the market response to such risk is whether the urgent needs of buyers on the open market incentivize suppliers to choose species that have been historically seeded across a fairly large geographic area in order to increase the likelihood that they will be able to sell their inventories.
For some buyers, for example, the costs for a preferred seed type may be too high, even if its use would increase restoration success. Do buyers decide to substitute more affordable, but less appropriate seed over large acreage, or use the more expensive seed on a smaller area? Furthermore, do limited buyer budgets induce suppliers to not produce native seeds that would be too costly, particularly given that some funds are released only under emergency conditions?
Observation 7. The seed market may be strongly affected by the limited capacity for seed banking and warehousing.
Because native seeds are frequently in short supply when they are needed to respond to a natural disaster, an obvious question to ask is whether it might be possible to stockpile seeds so that they are available when needed. Among other things, this approach would imply the need for predicting which areas are most likely to need seed, for adequate and economic seed storage capacity, and for seeds that remain viable long enough to respond to any need over prolonged storage periods.
Key questions for the committee are what the current storage capacity is, how much expanding storage capacity would reduce the volatility of the seed market and the price of seeds, whether accurate forecasting capabilities are available, and what measures could be taken to expand storage capacity.
Observation 8. Issues affecting urban and Eastern settings are somewhat distinct from those affecting public lands in the West.
In contrast to the 11 western U.S. states, where the federal government manages more than 40 percent of all land, the largest users of native seeds in the Midwest and eastern United States are smaller entities: state, county, and municipal agencies; nonprofits; and public–private partnerships addressing such issues as pollinator conservation, wildlife habitat, invasive species control, and farmland nutrient management in addition to basic ecological restoration. Hurricanes and flooding are creating a demand for large-scale restoration and resiliency planning in the eastern United States, analogous to the fire-driven demand on western U. S. public lands. The native plant seed supply chain is generally inadequate to meet these large demands.
The supply chain for the eastern United States is also affected by several regional-scale constraints. First, because of the humid climate, seed warehousing is more challenging. There are no large public or private seed warehouses in the eastern United States. Second, there are only a
handful of institutions, such as New York City’s Greenbelt Native Plant Center, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Seed Bank, and a few state-level programs, that conduct seed collection, processing, and banking in support of creating a sustainable supply of eco-regional native plant materials. Outside of these institutions, most seed collection is done on a short term, individual, or project basis, or it is done by commercial entities with no standardization, regulation, or use of available native seed collection or seed certification programs, as is true of much of nursery plant production.
INFORMATION-GATHERING STRATEGY
In the next phase of the committee’s assessment, a systematic information-gathering effort will be employed to obtain a more complete picture of the native seed supply chain. Several mechanisms will be used to collect the needed information, with each approach fitted to the specific type, projected use, and availability of that information. Some information about seed purchases acquired for restoration purposes currently exists, for example, in the BLM consolidated seed buy and indefinite delivery/quantity contract records, USFS seed cleaning records, and Association of Official Seed Certifying Agencies seed certification records. These records will need to be analyzed by the committee. Additional information will be sought from other institutional datasets, such as for seed purchases by state highway administrations.
Other types of information may lend themselves to a statistical survey if an appropriate sampling frame with contact information can be assembled. For example, the buyer side of the native seed supply chain is dominated by a few large federal agencies which are relatively easy to identify as buyers, while there are numerous smaller buyers of different types (tribes, states, municipalities, nongovernmental organizations, etc.). To the extent that sampling frames can be constructed for different categories of buyers, it will be possible to gather information from them through a survey. It seems likely, however, that it will not be possible to target at least some of those in this manner, and qualitative data collection methods (such as individual interviews or focus groups) might be used instead of a survey. For the large agencies it will be necessary to understand their organizational structures to be able to know at which administrative and geographic levels (probably multiple levels) decisions regarding native seed buys are made.
Issues of interest for the assessment will include: buyer characteristics; the frequency, volume, types (species, germplasm designation), and purposes of native seed purchases; decision-making criteria concerning which species to buy and restoration project planning; the time horizon for purchases, and availability of the types and quality of seed sought. Questions also will be asked about the sources of information used to determine seed availability, the buyer’s capacity to clean and store seed, the types of procurement and contracting mechanisms used, and institutional barriers to expanding the list of seeds purchased.
On the seed provider side, a list of companies and individuals that sell native seed or plants will be constructed from several sources, such as the USDA National Nursery and Seed Directory, BLM seed vendor lists, the American Seed Trade Association’s Environmental and Conservation Seed Committee, the Native Seed Network, and other sources. If it is determined that it is possible to develop a sampling frame, the primary data collection method for this population will likely be a survey, possibly supplemented with individual interviews or focus groups.
Information needed on seed suppliers includes type of operation; species collected or cultivated; annual seed quantities sold and unsold inventories; capacity for growing, cleaning,
and storing seed; customer base, intended uses, and geographical area served; types of contracting arrangements used; factors affecting production decisions and anticipating demand; and other challenges and potential solutions.
In preparation for the data collection the committee will (1) develop data collection instruments (survey questionnaires or interview guides), (2) develop formal data collection and analysis specifications for the surveys, and (3) identify a subcontractor to carry out the data collection. The committee will decide which specific tasks will be delegated to the data collection contractor, but it will maintain oversight of all activities, including sampling, instrument design, pretesting, and basic analyses.
Information will also be needed from other key players in the seed supply chain, including Seeds of Success and its collaborators, other seed collectors, collection permit issuers, seed cleaners and extractors, germplasm developers, seed analysts and certifiers, seed banks, seed warehouses, seed consolidators, and vendors. Input from these entities can further inform the committee’s understanding of the seed supply chain and its limitations. Due to the large variation in the mission, activities, and characteristics of these entities, the committee will gather this input with individual interviews, focus groups, case studies, or other forms of qualitative information gathering. The committee will also attempt to collect existing administrative data relevant to these parts of the supply chain.
Finally, the committee will develop and publicize a process through which any interested party will be able to submit comments to the committee.
