2

Supply Chain: Its Components and Flow

This chapter describes the organizations that participate in the native seed supply chain, beginning at the end of the chain with the purchasers (users) of native seed. It then discusses the pathways through which seed reaches users and describes what the committee has learned about the diversity of providers of native seed. The chapter next describes the intermediaries that provide various services to the supply chain such as contracting, seed testing and certification, and seed storage. Finally, the chapter discusses the agencies and organizations that provide ancillary support to the seed supply through research, policy, technical assistance, guidelines development, and funding that aids or informs the users and suppliers of native seed.

Assembling this at-large picture of the native seed supply chain is key to the next phase of the assessment, in which the committee will explore how actors in the supply chain make decisions, the functional quantitative and qualitative dimensions of seed use and supply, and opportunities for its expansion. Some of the subjects of interest to the committee are mentioned in this chapter and are expanded on in Chapter 3. This chapter is weighted toward describing the seed supply chain in the Western United States, because that is the larger focus of the assessment and reflects the committee’s fact finding thus far. However, the committee anticipates that the data-gathering strategy planned for phase 2 will capture enough information about actors in the seed supply in other parts of the country to document, at a minimum, key similarities and differences in regional needs and capacity.

USERS OF NATIVE SEED

Native plant seed users are highly diverse; they vary according to their restoration objectives and funding sources and include both public and private entities. Some of the largest users of native plant materials are those with responsibility for managing public lands and their ecosystems, such as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), National Park Service (NPS), and U.S. military (Table 2-1).

States, counties, and municipalities also use native seeds on their lands following disturbances such as fires as well as for roadside plantings, urban ecosystems, parklands, green infrastructure management, wildlife areas, and pollinator habitat enhancement. Many large U.S. institutions and universities have sustainability initiatives that include the use of native plants for their campus landscapes. Groups such as The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and its cooperators use native seeds, as do other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that manage land for conservation purposes (e.g., local and regional conservancies, land trusts, homeowner associations). Private buyers and users of native seeds include ranchers and farmers, rural and urban home landscapers, and companies involved in mining and resource extraction. There are also many private restoration contractors who are frequently involved in the purchase of native seeds and who conduct work for both the public and private sectors. Finally, there are public–private partnerships of public agencies, NGOs, and private users who collaborate to plan and implement seeding projects.

This section addresses the diversity of users, providing short descriptions of the largest users and a listing of others. The largest user of all is the federal government, which manages approximately 640 million acres of land. Most of this land is managed by one of five major agencies (public land, Table 2-1).

In 2001, Congress directed the U.S. Department of the Interior (USDI) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop a long-term program to manage and supply native plant materials for land restoration and rehabilitation (USHR, 2001). Collaboration with several other public agencies resulted in the National Seed Strategy, discussed later in this chapter (PCA, 2015).

The BLM manages approximately a tenth of the land surface area of the United States, primarily in 13 western states: Alaska, Arizona, California Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. This public land is managed for multiple uses,¹ and BLM is charged with sustaining and using natural resources. Driven in part by the irregular occurrence of large wildfires, annual BLM seed purchases have been highly variable, ranging from a high of approximately 7.5 million pounds in 2007 to a low of approximately 300,000 pounds in 2009. BLM makes most of its seed purchases, which are based on requests from BLM field officers, through a centralized operation referred to as the “consolidated seed buy,” which may be issued multiple times during a year (Olwell, 2019). At a much smaller scale, the BLM also proactively contracts with growers to produce specified native seed to supply its warehouses.

The USFS directly manages nearly 193 million acres of federal land (Table 2-1) and supports sustainable management on approximately 500 million acres of private, state, and tribal forests. As with the BLM, the USFS manages national forest lands for multiple uses.² Throughout the country, the USFS relies heavily on partnerships with other federal and state agencies and nonprofit groups as well as with private seed producers and nurseries. In the Western United States those managing national forests have access to four Forest Service nurseries and three seed extractories. The majority of restoration planning and purchasing of native seed and plant materials is directed from local district offices, with some special projects that involve larger geographic areas and multiple national forests conducted at the regional level (Carromero and Spurrier, 2019; Erickson, 2019).

TABLE 2-1 Land Managed by Five Major Federal Agencies (acres, 2018)

SOURCE: Vincent et al. (2020).

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¹ BLM follows a multiple-use management approach that encompasses “commercial, recreational, and conservation activities.” https://www.blm.gov/about/how-we-manage (accessed September 29, 2020).

² Multiple-Use and Sustained Yield Act of 1960, Public Law 86-517, 86th Congress (June 12, 1960), § 4(a).

The USFS has an established policy³ of being guided by seed zones in its collection and use of native germplasm (Box 1-2), but research-based or empirical seed zones are not available for most restoration species. As an alternative, Bower et al. (2014) developed comprehensive provisional seed zones based only on climate variables, and these provide one tool that is used when empirical seed zones are not available. The climatic zones are overlain by the Omernik level III ecoregion map, which includes details on local vegetation, soils, climate, and geology and can be used to, help distinguish among areas that are similar climatically yet different ecologically. Recently there has been an effort to update and modify Bower’s provisional seed zones for the Eastern United States (Pike, et al., 2020). Other resources developed by USFS include the Climate-Smart Restoration Tool and the Seedlot Selection Tool (discussed later in this chapter) which provide information on seed collection and the transfer of native plants under future environmental scenarios.

The USFWS administers the National Wildlife Refuge System, a network of waters and lands where the focus is on resource management and conservation, including the restoration of fish, wildlife, and plant resources and their habitats. The USFWS also administers the Endangered Species Act of 1973⁴ for terrestrial and freshwater organisms. Native seeds are used for promoting biodiversity through such actions as post-wildfire restoration, enhancing monarch butterfly habitat, and establishing native vegetation after the removal of invasive species.

The NPS manages land organized into 419 individual units, which are quite diverse and variable in size, type of land, and focus. They include national parks, national monuments, battlefield sites, recreation areas, seashores, and wild and scenic river systems. The NPS mission is to “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same . . . as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations” (NPS, n.d.). NPS restoration policy is to use only plant materials that are closely related genetically and ecologically to existing park populations and that have been collected from within that park or nearby. The need for restoration arises from wildfires, invasive plant infestations, road construction or maintenance, and campground and trail maintenance (Eckert, 2019).

The Department of Defense (DOD) manages land on military reservations in support of DOD mission-related activities. Internal regulations state that the DOD “shall manage its natural resources to facilitate testing and training, mission readiness, and range sustainability in a long-term, comprehensive, coordinated, and cost-effective manner” (DOD, 2011). An important component of the DOD whose tasks are related to land restoration is the Army Corp of Engineers (USACE), which maintains, owns, or operates more than 600 dams, 12,000 miles of commercial inland navigation channels, and 926 coastal or inland harbors. It also manages many military construction projects and cleans up contaminated sites from past military activities. The USACE also partners with other agencies on large-scale ecosystem restoration projects in such areas as the Everglades and the Louisiana coastal area.

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³ See https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/Native_Plant_Materials/documents/FSM_2070.pdf;https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/Native_Plant_Materials/documents/NativePlantMaterialsPolicy_Sept2012.pdf.

⁴ Endangered Species Act of 1973 (P.L. 93-205) as amended through the 108th Congress. See https://www.fws.gov/endangered/esa-library/pdf/ESAall.pdf (accessed September 29, 2020).

There are 566 federally recognized tribal nations, which hold 56 million acres of land in trust. Tribal communities often have the same interests and uses of native seed as do other land managers. Many tribes coordinate seed purchases with the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, especially for rehabilitation after fires. Individual tribes that need seed for agriculture and range management programs are able to fund them using “638 contracts.”⁵ Other seed usages on tribal lands are related to the activities of power companies, pipelines, and phone companies, to maintain right-of-way projects. On a smaller scale, tribal ranchers will re-seed rangeland for erosion control projects with assistance from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). A 2018 survey of the Navajo nation, which is the largest tribal reservation at 17.28 million acres, found that the primary objectives of native seed use are ecological restoration, education, range rehabilitation, wildlife habitat enhancement, and pollinator conservation (Mike et al., 2018).

Other federal and state agencies have critically important roles in maintaining and restoring land with native seeds. The Federal Highway Administration and state departments of transportation share responsibility for building and maintaining the roadsides in the United States. “Over 164,000 miles of highways in the National Highway System form the backbone of our 4-million-mile public road network” (FHA, 2011).

State government departments that use native plant materials include natural resources, wildlife agencies, and park authorities. Many states maintain native state tree nurseries. The methods vary among states, but most approach native tree production as a largely agronomic activity based more on experience than on researched standards for genetic diversity or geographic provenance. Counties and municipal governments, especially those of large municipalities, also have departments that maintain and restore their lands and may use native seed for these purposes.

Public–private partnerships are not uncommon. One notable effort is Utah’s Watershed Restoration Initiative, sponsored by Utah Partners for Conservation and Development.⁶ Since 2006 over 100,000 acres per year—spread over 150–200 projects annually—were planned, and the sites were prepared and seeded as appropriate, for a total cost per acre of about $100 (more in the case of the reestablishment of critical wildlife habitat). Over a million pounds of seed each year are procured through a bid process and then stored and planted; well over 1 million acres of proactive projects to improve watershed health and wildlife habitat have been completed thus far. Regional teams representing public and private interests annually rank and approve proposed projects, making possible timely site preparation and seed procurement. These geographically oriented projects effectively erase the boundaries of private, state, and federal lands through mutually beneficial planning and co-funding.

There is a wide array of private entities using substantial quantities of native seed. Farmers may employ native seed in areas adjacent to fields and in land that is set aside in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), although natives are not always required by the program. More than 23 million acres of farm and ranch land was enrolled in CRP in 2018 (Vincent et al., 2020). Livestock ranchers use native seed in efforts to improve livestock forage or for wildlife enhancement. Rural and urban landowners and homeowners use native seed for beautification,

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⁵ A “638 contract” or, more formally, a self-determination contract, is shorthand for a program under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA) of 1975 (Public Law 93-638), in which the operations of any federal program, function, service, or activity (and the funds needed to carry out those operations) must be transferred to tribes upon formal request for the benefit of the tribe.

⁶ See http://wildlife.utah.gov/watersheds.

wildlife habitats, and green infrastructure. Recreation companies, such as the owners and managers of golf courses and ski areas, offer another example of private native plant and seed users.

In addition, utility companies and private contractors construct and maintain corridors, oil and gas pads, pipelines, and wind and solar-power footprints that are required to restore the areas they disturb on public land. U.S. nonprofit organizations, including conservation and wildlife groups, own and manage conservation land through trusts and conservation easements. These can be of significant size, when considered collectively. TNC, for example, holds easements on 3.1 million acres of lands in 49 states.

SOURCES OF SEED

The foundation of the native plant material supply chain is the seed that exists in local, wild populations. These wild seed resources must be conserved and properly managed if they are to remain the essential resource fueling the supply chain. From the wild origins of these seeds, there are multiple pathways by which that seed enters the seed supply and becomes a product that is available for use.

Commercial Wildland Collection

One source of native seed is collections made directly from native wildland populations. Seeds are collected, cleaned, and marketed for immediate use in restoration projects. A significant component of the national native seed supply is sourced in this way. Trees and shrubs in particular are often collected in commercial quantities from naturally occurring populations. For example, several hundred thousand pounds of sagebrush seed is collected annually from the Great Basin and directly marketed to consumers (Stevenson, 2016). Still, for most species of grasses and forbs, the purpose of wildland collections is to provide stock seed for cultivated production fields. Large- and small-scale wildland seed collection is conducted by both private and public entities.

Seed Collection for Seed Banking and Ecological Restoration

The Seeds of Success (SOS) program is the largest coordinated effort in the country to collect diverse native species and populations in order to strengthen the availability of germplasm for seed banking, research, plant materials development, and ecological restoration. Established in 2001, SOS is the national native seed collection and banking program led by BLM. At least 50 partners, including federal and state organizations and NGOs (mainly botanic gardens), also collect seed directly for the SOS program or oversee contractors that collect seed for BLM under SOS protocols.⁷ To-date, over 25,000 collections have been conducted in over 43 states, focusing on collecting the more common “workhorse” species that, when used for restoration, form a plant community matrix into which additional plant species can be added.⁸ Some of the seed collected by SOS has been increased and used in restoration projects in the Western states where BLM operates.

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⁷ See https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/uploads/SOS_Protocol_10.18.18.pdf.

⁸ See https://www.blm.gov/programs/natural-resources/native-plant-communities/native-plant-and-seed-material-development/collection.

Seed collected by botanic garden partners in their own regions typically is cleaned at those gardens. Seed collections funded by BLM or its contractors are cleaned at the USFS Bend Seed Extractory in Oregon. After cleaning, some of SOS seed then goes to USDA’s Western Regional Plant Introduction Station in Pullman, Washington, where it is divided into three pools—two for long-term conservation storage at separate locations and a third for the working collection from which small amounts are distributed. The remaining seed goes to various places, depending on who collected it and for what purpose it was collected. For example, botanic gardens typically bank their remaining seed. Remaining BLM seed is kept for shorter terms at USDA facilities in Pullman, Washington, and Bend, Oregon. This banked seed is available for BLM offices to request back or to use in providing material to growers to produce seed for BLM restoration projects (Greene et al., 2019).

Seed Collection and Plant Materials Development

Historically the NRCS plant materials centers (PMCs), USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS), and USFS research units as well as universities, extension agents, and private agriculturalists have collected native seed from wild populations for evaluation and selection of the best performing accessions, leading to germplasm and cultivar releases of what are sometimes described as “improved plant materials.” These releases typically provide seed to the marketplace with known levels of performance in traits such as forage yield and quality of benefit to both wildlife and livestock, seed production, stand establishment, drought resistance, persistence, and potential for wide geographic application. The evaluation of these plant materials over multiple generations ensures that the targeted traits are heritable over subsequent generations. This allows individual materials to be named and be described in release notices, with the goal of generating widespread recognition, demand, and production.

The committee learned that the 25 PMCs are plant evaluation and production farms (ranging in size from 40 to 300 acres) that evaluate plants in order to address natural resource challenges and support NRCS programs, public and private partners, and commercial growers. Each PMC has the facilities and equipment required for plant evaluation and seed production and is staffed with about 2.5 full-time-equivalents plus part-time and temporary employees. The PMC plant materials currently being released are typically natural populations chosen for characteristics important for use in conservation and wildland plantings (e.g., erosion control, range rehabilitation). Older plant materials were released as cultivars, including native cultivars that were propagated directly from wild populations as well as exotic, non-native selections developed for emergency rangeland stabilization and livestock forage.

The PMCs produce and store seed of cultivars and germplasm releases in sufficient quantity to supply commercial seed growers. About 570 releases are active (meaning that growers are able to access the seed for production), with more than 450, primarily grasses, being native. Commercial growers form the basis of the restoration and revegetation native seed industry and produce NRCS conservation germplasm releases and cultivars with an estimated value of $100 million annually, enough to plant over 2.5 million acres. These cultivars and germplasm releases constitute a large portion of commercially produced native seed.

A considerable number of additional native plant germplasms have been released or at least identified for restoration projects through programs sponsored individually or cooperatively by state, federal, NGO, or private entities throughout the United States.

The genetic material in these releases is typically sourced from a few specific geographic populations and represents only a small fraction of the genetic diversity of the species in question. These releases are often planted in environments that, while within the range of the species, may differ in various ways, such as in climate and elevation, from the original collection locations. Many ecological restorationists question the widespread use of native germplasm releases outside of their seed zones of origin because of concern that these plants might interact adversely with other flora and fauna in the new location. Such restorationists place a high value on the use of provenance-specific native genotypes from the same seed zone, for reasons that include their likelihood to be locally adapted, to establish and survive, to facilitate ecological recovery of the site, to retain historic genotypes and maintain diversity, and to increase future resilience.

Although NRCS, ARS, and other germplasm developers do make recommendations for areas of uses for each release based on test plots and similar floral regions, they do not generally use formal empirical or provisional seed zones in their plant material development. There are many participants in the seed supply chain, including collectors, growers, other developers, and users, who prefer the traditional method (collection, evaluation and selection of accessions based on desirable trait expression, and release) and who are concerned that a proliferation of seed zones would make it impractical to develop and maintain numerous seed lines for every species in the market.

SEED AND PLANT PRODUCTION

The bulk of the production of seed and plant material for restoration is done by commercial companies (Shaw and Jensen, 2014). These seed producers include commercial seed collectors as well as growers who plant wild-collected seed in an agricultural setting to produce slightly larger quantities of seed for direct use or for germplasm development (to evaluate seed traits, potentially for breeding purposes) prior to large-scale production. Many native seed producers, both those who collect large quantities of seed on wildland sites for direct marketing and those who grow seed in cultivated fields, have their own cleaning and bagging equipment and may market their seed directly to native seed markets. Other producers deliver un-cleaned or bulk seed on an ad hoc or contract basis to seed warehouses and vendors for cleaning, containerizing, labeling, storing, and shipping. Some vendors consolidate many different lots of seed for larger, more general seed markets.

There is limited detailed, published information on practices for producing and cleaning the seed of many native species in seed fields; many growers independently determine appropriate practices for the species they bring into cultivation, which requires time and adds to initial production costs. Many producers have limited production and cleaning equipment and cannot grow and process all species.⁹

A major component of native seed production is field cultivation. Large-scale production is most common and widespread in the western United States, where the seed is used to address the huge areas of degraded public and private land, including use in emergency wildfire rehabilitation. Significant production also occurs in the midwestern, eastern, and southern United States to meet local geographic restoration needs on degraded lands, for roadside revegetation, for riparian and wetland mitigation, for urban green infrastructure such as green roofs and bioswales, for prairie strips in agricultural areas, and for home landscaping.

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⁹ Jerry Benson, personal communication.

In the Western United States there is a wide range of specialization in the native seed industry with respect to particular species, production capacity, and business relationships and models. Companies that produce native plant seed are of varied sizes, some with only a few acres of wild-sourced collections, germplasm releases, and cultivars, and others with irrigated fields that are 100 acres or more in size. Some companies grow a combination of wild-sourced seed in plots of less than 0.1 acre, while others may grow native plant materials in larger fields of 10 acres or more that may contain many different native plant species. Some seed companies go beyond seed cultivation in their own fields and undertake land preparation and planting for restoration projects under contract with public land management and private landowners. There are a few large seed companies east of the Mississippi River that carry seed of native species, but their available seed lots include limited data on origin and may be marketed for use over broad areas. Nationally there are many small to midsize nurseries that focus on wild-sourced plant material from localized areas or seed zones and that sell to particular geographic regions.

Some public entities such as Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie¹⁰ in Will County, Illinois, produce their own seed. The Forest Preserve District of Lake County¹¹ in Illinois operates its own native seed nursery. The Nature Conservancy’s Kankakee Sands¹² in Indiana produce its own seed for use on its properties. Others such as Nachusa Grasslands¹³ in Illinois, also with the Nature Conservancy, focus on collecting from prairie remnants to provide the seed needed for their restorations.

The Greenbelt Native Plant Center in New York City (NYC) has developed its own supply of seed stocks for 75 native species to use directly in seeding operations or as the basis for further commercial increase under contract to NYC. The center supports a staff of two seed collectors to make wildland seed collections in support of its own production. It maintains an average of 2,000 collections in its seed bank and over the past 25 years has produced 12 million wild-sourced plants that have been planted in NYC ecosystems.

INTERMEDIARIES

This section discusses processes and organizations that perform various essential functions within the supply chain, such as permitting, seed analysis, certification, contracting, and seed storage.

Permitting

Collecting seed on public and private lands requires permits or permission (BLM, 2013). Permitting procedures and requirements vary, sometimes even among permitting offices of the same land management agency, and permitting offices vary in terms of the availability of staff, staff training, and the resources that are available to monitor collectors. Collecting protocols differ depending on whether the seed is collected for direct use or gathered as stock seed for increase or for seed banking. Informal discussions that committee members had with various stakeholders revealed concerns about over-collection at certain locations, the population sizes of the target species, variation in annual seed production and collection during previous years, and

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¹⁰ See https://www.fs.usda.gov/midewin.

¹¹ See https://www.lcfpd.org/nursery.

¹² See https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/kankakee-sands.

¹³ See https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/nachusa-grasslands.

the seed quality of collections. Commercial collectors report that difficulty in obtaining permits in places where legitimately collectable populations of many species are present means that much potential seed is not made available for restoration efforts. More information is needed to understand how the permitting process may be streamlined, and funds need to be provided to expand capacity while protecting wildland plant population resources.

Seed Analysis

The U. S. Federal Seed Act¹⁴ and state seed laws mandate that seed cannot legally be sold to those who plant the seed—the end user—without a seed analysis label. The seed label is based on a seed analysis report, which is the written documentation of the tests performed on a sample in a seed testing laboratory and by a trained seed analyst. There are both government and commercial seed testing laboratories that follow seed testing rules published by the Association of Official Seed Analysts (AOSA).¹⁵

AOSA’s seed testing rules¹⁶ are followed in order to select representative working samples from the submitted seed sample, calculate the percentage by weight of the pure seed units of the main species, and determine the percentage of seeds that are viable. The percentages of seed of other species, of weed seeds (both identified by species and number/pound), and of inert matter are also calculated.

Recent conversations by committee members with seed analysts indicate that the AOSA testing rules for many native species are still in development or have not begun to be developed. Pure seed units may be difficult to define, and viability determinations may be complicated by seed dormancy. These difficulties lead to added costs and long wait times for analysis reports. For many species an inconsistency of results among seed labs often frustrates the determination of seed value for buyers and sellers alike. The committee plans to explore barriers related to testing capacity in the next phase of its work.

Notably, a seed testing laboratory does not verify the identity of a cultivar or germplasm unless costly chemical or DNA tests are specifically requested. When a seed analysis report lists a variety name or germplasm ID, it is noted only as “sender’s information,” and the report does not differentiate between subspecies, nor confirm the geographic area where the seed was collected or whether the seed has a specific germplasm identity, if it was field produced. This function is addressed by official seed certification, described in the following section.

Certification

Certification assures that the seed in the container, as listed on a certification tag, is from the source claimed for the collection, variety, or germplasm (Young et al., 2003). This applies both to field-produced seed and wild-collected seed for direct use. Labels may provide the state, county, and elevation or other geographic descriptions of the collection site, which may or may not aid in identifying the seed zone of the germplasm. The process for certifying seed is set by seed-certifying agencies that are members of Association of Official Seed Certifying Agencies (AOSCA). This is a third-party service provided in most U.S. states, Canada, and several other

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¹⁴ See https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/fsa.

¹⁵ A list of seed laboratories can be found at www.aosaseed.com and www.seedtechnology.net.

¹⁶ See https://www.analyzeseeds.com/product-category/publications/aosa.

countries, including Australia and Argentina.¹⁷ Seed certification is done by examining the records of the seed source (wildland site or field site), by inspecting generation and conditioning facilities, and by studying the results of formal seed sample analysis.

In contrast to seed analysis, the results of which are required to be provided on a seed analysis label, federal and state seed laws do not require that seed sold to users be certified. But for buyers concerned with ensuring the use of properly sourced seed in restoration projects, the verified germplasm identification provided by certification offers useful and trustworthy information.¹⁸

Government Procurement and Contracting

Procurement (purchasing) procedures and contracts connect users with suppliers and are an integral part of the supply chain. Procurement procedures define how native seed buyers must choose among the seed lots offered. Once desired seed is selected, contracts specify what, when, where, and how native seed is to be delivered. The effects of both procurement procedures and contracting are both direct (what the terms say) and indirect (how the terms affect producers’ willingness to participate and whether buyers get what they want).

Because government agencies are the biggest buyers of native seed, their procurement rules play an outsize role in the seed market. Government agencies at all levels must follow procurement regulations, and many have procurement officers to ensure that the contract terms for native seed acquisition comply with those regulations.

Although procurement can be as simple as buying a product off the shelf at a store, government procedures (notably the U.S. Federal Acquisition Regulation)¹⁹ typically require competitive bidding to meet specified contract terms. Seed providers must be registered as official vendors (e.g., with the federal System for Award Management)²⁰.

Contracts can stipulate requirements for native seed in a variety of ways. One important distinction is between contracts to buy delivered seed (e.g., BLM consolidated seed buys) and contracts to support a production process (e.g., indefinite delivery/quantity contracts). In the former, the seed producer bears all production risk and some marketing risk, whereas in the later both types of risk are shared. The contract terms for a native seed purchase typically dictate the species, quantities, and delivery timing, and they often include specifications for the degree of genetic diversity required, seed origin location, seed certification, and seed wild collection procedures.

Seed Warehouses

The storage of seed prior to its use is a critical piece of the seed supply. Large amounts of seed for restoration are often stored in warehouses under ambient conditions. Because seed longevity is enhanced by low temperatures and low humidity, locations in the arid western United States provide more effective ambient seed storage, from both a cost and a biological perspective, than more humid regions in the coastal Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, and the

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¹⁷ See www.aosca.org for a listing of agencies that provide certification services.

¹⁸ See http://greatbasinfirescience.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/UtahCropImprovement_SeedConnoisseur.pdf.

¹⁹ See https://www.acquisition.gov/browse/index/far.

²⁰ See https://sam.gov/sam.

East. Agencies and companies typically try to use warehoused seed within 1–2 years after production because the seed viability of many species decreases fairly quickly under ambient storage conditions, and space is needed for newly arriving seed lots. Agency seed warehouses in the United States include three managed by BLM located in Boise, Idaho; Ely, Nevada; and Twin Falls, Idaho, with a total combined capacity of 2.1 million pounds. The USFS does not appear to have such a large capacity for its seed storage under ambient, refrigerated, or frozen conditions. Storage is often located at nursery facilities with limited total space. The Bend, Oregon, seed extractory has significant storage but not at an industrial scale.

Some seed companies have limited access to cool or cold storage for short-term year-to-year storage of native seed, but long-term, multiple year storage requires conditions and special facilities that are not available to all companies. The BLM does have refrigerated storage at its Ely, Nevada, and Boise, Idaho, warehouses, with a capacity for 135,000 pounds of seed. There is also a large seed warehouse maintained by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources in Ephraim, Utah, with ambient and refrigerated storage totaling about a million pounds of capacity. There appear to be no comparable native seed warehouses east of the Mississippi River.

Seed Banks

Seed banks, which often hold wild-collected seed, typically maintain much smaller amounts of seed than do seed warehouses, and many can maintain the seed for exceptionally long periods of time under subzero conditions, either in mechanical freezers or under cryogenic (liquid nitrogen) conditions. The banks with long-term storage are known as conservation seed banks or conservation collections. Other seed banks have active or working collections that are held for shorter periods at higher temperatures, just above freezing, to facilitate their distribution, particularly for research and development. At present relatively little is known about the “best practices” for the long-term seed storage of native plant species (Walters, 2015).

Seed banking at the federal level is largely carried out by USDA’s National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) within ARS and by non-USDA affiliated centers.²¹ These centers are focused on safeguarding the genetic diversity of agriculturally important plants, including some native species, particularly crop wild relatives. The 19 USDA NPGS locations, including those is Pullman, Washington (Western Regional Plant Introduction Station), Fort Collins, Colorado (National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation; NCGRP), and Beltsville, Maryland (the National Germplasm Resources Laboratory), manage accessions of native plant seeds.

Seed banking of wild plants for restoration is relatively new and growing in importance. The USDA NCGRP in Fort Collins, Colorado, began banking seed of threatened plant species in the 1980s. Seeds of Success began banking seeds of common native plant restoration species in the early 2000s. Both programs use the NCGRP for long-term conservation storage for the relatively small quantity maintained for each seed collection (e.g., around 10,000 seeds per population) (Walters, 2015). Other agencies and entities—such as the University of Arizona’s Desert Legume Program, the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Arizona, and many NGOs—maintain dozens of smaller active seed banks or working collections, but the total storage capacity of these entities is unknown to the committee.

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²¹ See https://www.ars-grin.gov/Pages/Collections.

Botanic gardens and similar institutions provide additional storage capacity. For example, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Seed Bank (MARSB)²² has taken steps to develop a regional working bank. In 2014 it solicited input from botanists throughout the mid-Atlantic region to develop a “regional prioritized collection list” (262 species out of a shared flora of 1,370 species and a comprehensive flora of 6,630 species). MARSB also offers seed storage to other groups in the region and holds seed collection workshops, mostly in New York State, both to teach other institutions how to make proper seed collections and to build a cadre of volunteers to help MARSB collection efforts.

Similarly, the Chicago Botanic Garden maintains a regional seed bank for the upper Midwest. From a regional flora of over 3,000 taxa, it prioritizes collections of 530 plant species that are most frequently used in restoration. The garden’s Dixon National Tallgrass Prairie Seedbank uses volunteers to assist with cleaning and processing seed and relies on a network of contract collectors to collect seed throughout the Midwest. Storage at botanic garden seed banks is often a mix of long-term conservation collections and active collections used for restoration and research.

ANCILLARY INFLUENCES: FUNDING, POLICY, PROGRAMS, RESEARCH, AND ADVOCACY

Government agencies, policies, programs, university researchers, and seed associations affect native plant selection and use through various mechanisms, including (1) policies and funding that support the use of native plants, (2) guidance for which species to use, (3) basic and applied restoration research, and (4) tools to facilitate decision making. Several examples are provided below.

Burned Area Emergency Response Program

The Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) Program²³ serves most of the federal land management agencies (Bureau of Indian Affairs, BLM, USFWS, NPS, USFS) and assists with the emergency stabilization measures required following fires when help is requested by local jurisdictional units. BAER teams are interagency and interdisciplinary (e.g., hydrologists, soil scientists, botanists, archaeologists) and work with local suppression teams, local unit personnel, and other affected public and private authorities to identify risks and develop emergency response plans. These plans prescribe the emergency treatments on federal and tribal trust lands that are required to mitigate risks to life and safety, infrastructure, and other natural and cultural resource values. BAER teams provide recommendations on where reseeding is needed and recommend seeding mix compositions; these recommendations can be changed at the local level. Funding is provided for the first post-fire year, with amounts depending on budgets and annual wildfire activity.

Although federal directives encourage that native plant materials be employed in any seeding, their use varies depending on the policies and guidance of different agencies. For fire-damaged lands that are not expected to recover naturally, USDI agencies can submit requests for

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²² See http://www.marsb.org.

²³ See https://www.nifc.gov/BAER/definitions.html.

competitive 3-year Burned Area Rehabilitation funds²⁴ that support treatments within 5 years of fire containment. The availability of these funds has declined in recent years, however. The costs of comparable projects on Forest Service lands must be covered by regularly appropriated funds.²⁵ For all agencies additional restoration treatments, such as wildlife habitat improvement, are covered by appropriated funds or pulled from other sources such as the BLM Greater Sage-Grouse Integrated Program of Work.²⁶

National Seed Strategy for Rehabilitation and Restoration Progress Report

The 2015–2020 National Seed Strategy for Rehabilitation and Restoration (henceforth, “the Strategy”),²⁷ which was prepared by representatives of the 12 agencies of the federal committee of the Plant Conservation Alliance (PCA), provides a framework for improving collaboration among agencies and their many public and private collaborators in order to increase the availability of native plant materials and the technology required for their use in repairing damaged plant communities. The Strategy’s 2018 progress report detailed accomplishments within each of its four goals (PCA, 2018). Some examples of major accomplishments include:

Goal 1: Identify seed needs and ensure the reliable availability of genetically appropriate seed. Accomplishments: commissioning the National Academy of Sciences Assessment of Seed Needs and Capacities; expansion of the Sagebrush in Prisons Program;²⁸ creation of databases for seed vendors, conservation experts, restoration species, and native plant policies; seed propagation; the development of plant propagation protocols; increases in seed banking.

Goal 2: Identify research needs and conduct research to provide genetically appropriate seed and improve technology for native seed production and ecosystem restoration. Accomplishments: the creation of additional empirical seed zones; development of guidelines for restoration that takes climate change into account; evaluation of long-term trends in land treatment practices.

Goal 3: Develop tools that enable managers to make timely, informed seeding decisions for ecological restoration. Accomplishments: Development of the Climate Smart Restoration Tool, the Seeding Probability Tool, and the Plant Demonstration Area database.

Goal 4: Develop strategies for internal and external communication. Accomplishments: Development of a toolkit for communicating the National Seed Strategy; the provision of numerous presentations and articles on the Strategy.

State- and Local-Level Seed Strategies

Developing collaborations among public and private partners to proactively conserve, collect, increase, and store native seed to meet long-term restoration needs is not only a national

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²⁴ See https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/elips/documents/owf_policy_memo_2016-01_post_wildfire_recovery_program_policy_changes.pdf.

²⁵ Vicky Erickson and Cathy Farr, USFS R-6, personal communication.

²⁶ Anne Halford, BLM, personal communication.

²⁷ See https://www.blm.gov/programs/natural-resources/native-plant-communities/national-seed-strategy.

²⁸ See https://appliedeco.org/sagebrush-in-prisons-project-restoring-habitat-and-hope.

goal but is also a goal of many states and localities. For example, Iowa has a native seed program that pre-dates the National Seed Strategy. It began with a 1988 program to assist Iowa counties in using native plants in roadside vegetation management, which led to a plant materials program to develop Iowa source-identified stock seed for commercial production. In 1990 the creation of the Native Roadside Vegetation Center at the University of Northern Iowa, known today as the Tallgrass Prairie Center, began the development of a capacity to grow, clean, and store native seed, conduct research, and develop best practices—not only for roadsides, but for conservation plantings on farms and the restoration of natural areas, such as the Irvine Prairie.²⁹

Other states and cities are also developing native seed strategies. For example, in 2016 Arkansas initiated the Arkansas Native Seed Program with the goal of creating “ample supplies of genetically appropriate native seed available when needed” following hurricanes and wildfires. The program has federal, state, and nonprofit partners for the collection and increase of native seeds.³⁰ Similarly, Nevada is working on a state-level native seed strategy with the goal of increasing the availability and use of native seed within the state. As with Arkansas, the Nevada Strategy, initiated in 2016 by the Nevada Native Seed Partnership, was inspired by the goals and structure of the National Seed Strategy. The Nevada Strategy currently partners with 12 federal and state agencies, nonprofits, and conservation districts as well as the University of Nevada, Reno. This state-level plan was finalized in spring 2020.

The city of Los Angeles (LA) also is coordinating with public and private groups to support a local seed strategy that includes collecting seeds and propagating plants within the LA region for projects in the LA area. Working with botanical gardens, volunteer-led nurseries, city parks, native plant associations, and other nongovernmental organizations, the effort serves as a laboratory in which to research topics related to urban ecology.

As noted earlier, in New York City the MARSB was established by the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation in collaboration with Seeds of Success to “increase the availability of genetically appropriate native seed across the Mid-Atlantic” to meet the seed needs for region-wide, landscape-scale restoration. MARSB is unique in the eastern United States.

Department of Transportation Guidance and Technical Assistance

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) allots funds for the National Highway System through the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to state transportation departments based on proposals for interstate, state, municipal, and county highway construction or upgrades. Since 1987 several highway bills³¹ have been passed that require or encourage state recipients of federal dollars to plant native plants in conjunction with road construction.

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²⁹ See https://tallgrassprairiecenter.org/irvine-prairie.

³⁰ See https://www.naturalheritage.com/blog/native-seed-program-takes-root.

³¹ STURRA-1987: 23 USC §319 requires at least 0.25 percent of landscaping funds be allocated for planting native wildflowers on new projects and upgrades.

TEA-21-1998: Stipulates landscaping and scenic enhancement costs may be approved by the Secretary as part of federal-aid highway construction via transportation enhancement (TE) grants (replaced in 2015).

SAFETEA-LU-2006: Section 6006, 23 USC §329 makes control of noxious weeds and establishment of native species eligible for existing federal-aid funds.

FAST-2015 amends Section 23 USC 319 (Landscaping) to encourage pollinator habitat and forage on transportation rights-of-way through integrated vegetation management including reduced mowing and

USDOT is the primary contact for advice on pollinators and vegetation management for state recipients of federal highway funds. Guidance is provided to states in USDOT/FHWA-funded publications (e.g., Roadside Use of Native Plants, Roadside Weed Management, Vegetation Management: An Ecoregional Approach, and Pollinators and Roadsides: Best Management Practices for Managers and Decision Makers).³²

Environmental Protection Agency Regulations and Grants

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) develops and enforces regulations to implement environmental laws and sets national standards that states and tribes enforce. The EPA generates and disseminates scientific information through grants, research, partnerships, education, and publications, and it includes restoration activities in pollution abatement programs, wetland mitigations, Superfund cleanup, and related programs. Stormwater construction project permits, for example, require that sites be restored with native vegetation to a uniform plant coverage of 70 percent of the site. EPA green infrastructure research focuses on the use of plants, soils, and landscaping to reduce polluted stormwater runoff. The Green Infrastructure Wizard³³ is a database with tools and resources developed from this research to aid in water management and community planning.

The Clean Water Act provides funding for stream and wetland restoration. The 1987 Section 319 Nonpoint Source Management Program (40 C.F.R. subchapters D, N, and O (parts 100–140, 401–471, and 501–503) provides for the distribution of grant money to states, territories, and tribes for technical assistance, financial assistance, education, training, technology transfer, demonstration projects, and the monitoring of nonpoint source implementation projects. This addresses the need for greater federal leadership to help focus state and local nonpoint source efforts. In 2019 funding for stream and wetland restoration totaled $165.4 million.

Finally, the EPA’s Omernik ecoregions³⁴ provide a spatial framework for ecosystem research, management, and monitoring across federal agencies and other jurisdictions with lands in similar geographic areas. These ecoregions subdivide U.S. lands using factors such as geology, dominant vegetation, climate, and soil data. The ecoregions are supplementary to the provisional seed zones developed by Bower et al. (2014), which incorporate Omernik Level III (Omernik and Griffith, 2014) ecoregions to guide seed transfer for areas without empirical or research-based seed zones.

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Guidance

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) Conservation Technical Assistance Program (CTA) aids individuals or groups in developing plans for conserving natural resources and sustaining agricultural production on non-federal lands. CTA conservation plans

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development of habitat and forage for Monarch butterflies, native pollinators, honeybees by planting native forbs (including native milkweeds) and grasses.

³² See https://search.usa.gov/search?utf8=%26%23%23x2713%3B&affiliate=dot-fhwa&sitelimit=fhwa.dot.gov%2Fpublications%2Fresearch&query=plants&commit=GO.

³³ See https://www.epa.gov/sustainability/giwiz.

³⁴ See https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/ecoregions.

incorporate NRCS conservation practices and can be used to apply for federal assistance (e.g., through the Conservation Reserve Program, which incentivizes farmers to take marginal cropland out of production for 10–15 years, and other conservation programs of the Farm Bill)³⁵ as well as for state or private funding. The use of native species is not required, but an emphasis on native plants increases the likelihood of receiving funding. The species that are planted are selected from state conservation practices lists, and seed is purchased commercially by the user. Several presenters to the committee suggested that the conservation programs of the Farm Bill were a driver of seed demand—mostly developed cultivars and selected germplasm releases—by private landowners.

Plant materials specialists from the plant materials centers and the National Plant Data Team have produced 2,900 documents on conservation planting, with more than 1.5 million downloads annually. These documents include plant guides, technical notes, vendor lists, and the Plants Database, which contains extensive information on U.S. plants³⁶ (Englert, 2019).

USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Funding

The USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) supports scientific research related to agriculture, food, the environment, and rural communities. NIFA is the extramural science funding source for USDA; funds are provided primarily to land grant universities, but also to other federal, state, and private entities. Competitive funding for natural resource programs is low (less than $25 million per year), but 36 native seed projects were actively supported in 2019 through grants programs on rangeland restoration and through the Agricultural Food and Research Initiative. These projects focused on techniques and strategies for improving the establishment of native plants for ecological restoration. The topics included seed enhancement, seed production practices to supply seed for current and future conditions, reestablishment of biological soil crusts, and the establishment of warm season grasses for forage and biofuel production³⁷ (Dobrowolski, 2019).

U.S. Geological Survey Collaboration and Research

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) plays an active role in providing research to support seed transfer guidance, native plant material development, and restoration strategies. Much of this work occurs through collaborative partnerships with the BLM’s Mojave Desert and other ecoregional plant programs and with BLM state offices. Tools such as the USGS Land Treatment Digital Library,³⁸ which catalogs legacy data on BLM land treatments, aid managers in planning revegetation and adaptive management practices. Data from this particular repository have provided information for large-scale reviews of the success of seeding efforts to date.

USGS researchers conduct common garden and landscape genetic analyses, which provide information on traits that allow plants to survive, as well as studies of the distribution of adaptive genetic variation and natural patterns of genetic differentiation. Researchers also manipulate environmental conditions to investigate responses to potential future climate conditions. These studies use existing native plant materials and wildland collections to represent

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³⁵ The Farm Bill is shorthand for the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, P.L. 115-334.

³⁶ See https://plants.usda.gov/java.

³⁷ Randi Johnson, USFS, personal communication.

³⁸ See https://ltdl.wr.usgs.gov.

the diversity of environmental conditions across a species distribution. Their approaches make it possible to understand how existing native plant materials may best be used, what new native plant materials are most critical to develop, and how to create accurate, species-specific seed transfer guidance for current and future climates. The knowledge gained is distilled into publicly available tools and data products to inform managers and practitioners. As the USGS research framework grows, an important challenge will be maintaining consistent funding to support ongoing investigations, as many of these research needs require long-term commitments. Ultimately, USGS investigations will improve restoration outcomes by facilitating the evidence-based development and use of native plant restoration materials.³⁹

USDA Forest Service Research

The USDA Forest Service research arm has been a leader in genetic research and the development of seed transfer guidelines for conifer species since the early 1900s. Early research showed the importance of local adaptation, as the transfer of plants outside of their local environments resulted in poor performance or planting failures (Johnson et al., 2004). As a result of that research, seed zones for forest trees are now widely accepted and used. Local adaptation has also been documented for many other native species (Baughman et al., 2019). As the need for ecological restoration increased, the Forest Service and its partners have invested in genetic research and seed transfer development for numerous foundational native species occupying forests, shrublands, and grasslands. The return on these investments can be seen in improved ecological recovery, function, and resiliency. Climate change and an increasing frequency of disturbances has prompted the development of climate-smart ecological genetic models and decision support web platforms. These platforms use climate-associated genetic models and species distribution models to map seed transfer distances. Since these models are built using climate variables, the models can be projected for future climate scenarios. With the Climate Smart Restoration Tool⁴⁰ (for shrubs, grasses and forbs) or the Seedlot Selection Tool⁴¹ (trees), users can develop seed transfer maps for their chosen species under contemporary or future climates. The Forest Service research arm, along with partners, has also been active in conducting research on seed technology (germination protocols, seed production, seed storage), plant materials development, the control of exotic species, and wildland seeding strategies, particularly for post-fire revegetation.

Universities

University researchers contribute basic and applied science to support the use of native seed, often working in tandem with state, federal, and NGO partners to answer the most pressing questions in such areas as seed zone development, seed dormancy investigations, seed coating technologies, genetic analyses, and identifying adaptive traits. University researchers also train the undergraduate and graduate students who engage in numerous parts of the native seed industry. With increasing focus and interest in restoration science, the number of programs preparing students to fill these positions is growing, and efforts are ongoing to increase the number of botanical training programs across the United States.

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³⁹ Rob Massati, U.S. Geological Survey, personal communication.

⁴⁰ See https://climaterestorationtool.org/csrt.

⁴¹ See https://seedlotselectiontool.org/sst.

Seed Associations

Many seed companies belong to state or national associations that work on their behalf to strengthen the seed industry. There are a few associations dedicated to native plant materials production, such as the Intermountain Native Plant Growers Association,⁴² Western Seed Association,⁴³ Missouri Native Seed Association,⁴⁴ and Florida Association of Native Nurseries.⁴⁵ Statewide crop improvement associations such as the Iowa Crop Improvement Association and seed certification agencies in other states oversee programs of native seed certification as sponsored by the Association of Official Seed Certifying Agencies.

The American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) is a national seed industry organization. ASTA’s Committee on Environmental and Conservation Seed consists of about 25 companies “who provide quality seed for land restoration, rehabilitation, and reclamation.” The committee is focused on promoting “native seeds with introduced and released plant materials in projects on private and public lands” (ASTA, n.d.). ASTA has advocated for the use of germplasm releases and cultivars for BLM restoration projects and has developed a number of position papers regarding the use of local native seed, USDA NRCS national conservation practice standards, efficient native seed use by BLM, and best management practices for native seed production, which are published on its website.⁴⁶

SUMMARY

Native seeds are needed for land restoration, and there is currently a system in place to supply those seeds. It starts with the collection of wild seed and the production of larger quantities of seed from existing seed supplies. Seed is cleaned, analyzed, certified, and stored during the process. The many users of native seed range from large federal agencies to local landowners. Seed needs are highly variable and are often driven by disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes, which periodically overloads native seed capacities. Furthermore, there are concerns that the current delivery system does not provide the quantity and diversity of native seed needed for ecological restoration.

REFERENCES

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⁴² See http://npj.uwpress.org/content/6/2/104.short.

⁴³ See https://www.westernseed.org.

⁴⁴ See http://monativeseed.org/index.html.

⁴⁵ See https://www.afnn.org.

⁴⁶ See https://www.betterseed.org/the-issues/environmental-and-conservation-seed.

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