[APWG] Anyone unearthing 100-250 year old dormant native seeds, once you eradicate the weeds?

[Sands, Bree (Parks)]

To whom it may concern,

I suggest reaching out to Nigel Rollings, a New York based landscape designer. http://nigelrollingslandscapedesign.com/ He teaches Garden Design at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. He mentioned in class that he worked on a project for someone, found a 100 year old American Indian storage chamber, and had unearthed 100 year old seeds that sprouted the following season. I am not entirely sure of the species but I am sure he would be willing to speak to you about it!
All the best!
Bree Sands

From: APWG [mailto:apwg-bounces at lists.plantconservation.org] On Behalf Of Redwood City Seed-Reveg Edge
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2020 12:03 PM
To: apwg at lists.plantconservation.org
Cc: craig at ecoseeds.com
Subject: [APWG] Anyone unearthing 100-250 year old dormant native seeds, once you eradicate the weeds?

Dear APWG,

I have been working in California for 35 years on weeding, and have found all across the State, 100-250 year old dormant native seeds still in the soil, and once the weeds are managed, the native seeds sprout up and bite you on the ankles?

I first found this treasure in 1992 on 70 acres that was 99% weed-covered along the California coast south of Santa Cruz at La Selva Beach that you can read about at http://www.ecoseeds.com/shaw.pdf

Now that whole 70-acre property is 95% native covered, without burning, without grazing, without scraping, and without sowing a single native seed.  Over 100 species of natives popping up, and you can see listed what weeds we eradicated and what natives popped up at http://www.ecoseeds.com/shawlist.html including two natives that were new to science.

Everywhere I work in California, I am discovering these dormant native seeds--

QUESTION--Is anyone else in California or other states, finding these treasures still in their soils.  On a 10-acre property I am working on currently, the dormant native seeds are coming up at 10-20 seedlings per square inch, or about 600 million across the whole ten acres of serpentine grasslands.

The sprouting natives includes some really rare items, like tens of thousands of Calochortus, hundreds of thousands of Lessingias, and dozens of Lewisias.

Look forward to the replies.  Sincerely,  Craig Dremann, The Reveg Edge, P.O. Box 361, Redwood City, CA 94064 - Inventing grassland restoration technologies since 1992 - Office (650) 325-7333


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.plantconservation.org/pipermail/apwg_lists.plantconservation.org/attachments/20200213/3ecf90cd/attachment.html>