Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Native Seed Farm Safeguarding California’s Future

At Heritage Growers, every acre is being cultivated to repair ecosystems and help the Golden State meet its ambitious conservation goals. This native seed farm in Colusa is tackling one of the most fundamental — and least visible — environmental recovery challenges facing the American West: the shortage of locally adapted native seeds needed to restore damaged ecosystems at scale. In recent years, (there has been) an unprecedented wave of large-scale restoration projects across California — from wetlands and rivers to forests and grasslands. But demand for native plant material has rapidly outpaced supply, and the California Native Plant Society has identified an “urgent and growing need” to coordinate efforts and ramp up supply and set standards of practice. (Thus the need for) what restoration scientists call “source-identified” seed — plant material whose genetic origin can be traced to the specific region where it will ultimately be replanted. Read ON.