After devastating wildfires spread across Central Oregon this year, it’s now the post-recovery period for landowners and land managers. Returning the landscape to pre-fire conditions, or better, requires much more than just spreading some seeds.
“We’ve been a well-kept secret for 25 years,” said Berta Youtie, restoration ecologist with Eastern Oregon Stewardship Services and secretary/treasurer of the Deschutes Basin Native Plant Seedbank. Established in 2004, the nonprofit seedbank partners with over 20 organizations and is dedicated to providing genetically local native plant seed for restoration and revegetation projects in the tri-county area. “We’ve been mostly serving the agencies, utility companies and land trusts selling them our seeds, but with administrative change and agencies buying less seed, we thought if we’re going to survive, we need to offer seed to landowners, also.”
To assist landowners with seed selection and the restoration process, Youtie may conduct a site visit, as well as providing the landowner with the booklet, “Guidelines for Seeding Native Plants” which contains a wealth of information about weed control, site preparation and seeding techniques. Her goal is for landowners to be successful because the process can be complex.
Though many of the growers of native seed are located in the Columbia River Basin, Dry Fly Management Company in Terrebonne now grows native grass seed.
“We used bluebunch wheatgrass, Idaho fescue and Great Basin wildrye from Berta to plant native seed fields at Dry Fly,” said Conrad Crawford, Dry Fly Management Company’s Head of Farming Operations. “The fields are established really well and we are looking forward to harvesting seed in the next couple of years.”
“For many entities engaged in native plant restoration throughout the country, it’s difficult to source local native seed for projects,” said Jen Zalewski, Deschutes Land Trust associate stewardship director. “Using seeds that are sourced far from a project location; from somewhere with a different elevation or precipitation pattern, means that the plants grown from those seeds might not be well-adapted to the area and you may have less success establishing native vegetation.”
Seedbank orders are kept in a storage facility owned by the East Cascades Native Plant Hub program of Oregon State University, which is located at the Dry Fly Farm. This year’s seed order pickup is Oct. 7. Visit the Seedbank website to view the seed catalog, and to place an order contact Berta Youtie at byoutie@crestviewcable.com or 541-447-8166, ASAP.
Deschutes Basin Native Plant Seedbank
Dbnpseed.org
Berta Youtie
541-447-8166
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