[PCA] Start producing Florida wildflowers, instead of studying how?

[Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company]

Dear Lisa and All,

I received your message, that you are asking for proposals for a student
to study the possibility of growing only three native Florida wildflower
ecostypes?

I have been in the seed business for almost four decades, and with the
money you will spend on a study, instead you could have hundreds of pounds
of seeds of each of those species produced by a commercial grower.

I taught classes in eight Western States and in Delaware, on how to get
your own native seed ecotypes reproduced, that you can see at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/classes.html.

The way I would divide the study funds, is as follows: 1/3 for locating
stands of wildflowers, and making local seed collections to get the stock
seed you need, from a wild range of places around Florida, 1/3 for the
actual seed production, and 1/3 for a common garden study to see how the
populations are related, and for a refrigerated or frozen seed storage
facility, and to do test plantings, to determine the correct sowing rate
for wildland situations.

You do not want to start this process, unless you have already done your
common garden work, so you can evaluate the relationship between the
State's ecostype populations of the same species.

And you definately do not want to start this process, unless you can
produce 100% successful, longlasting, weed-free plantings every time, when
sowings the different species in wildlands situations.

Unless you work out the bugs in the wildlands sowings in the beginning,
tons of ecotype seeds may not give you any suvvessful plantings, as you
can see from my class exercise at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/good.example.html

Those photos are of local native seeds sown in soil taken a few feet away
from the plants they were harvested from, and in one case the seedlings
sprouted but then died--and in the other case, they thrived.

Regarding ecotypes, Dr. Edward Greene in 1905 determined that in
California, the California poppy has 113 distinctive ecotypes, in his
Revision of Eschscholtzia. PITTONIA 5: 205-293.

You can read more about ecotypes at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/juicy.gossip.three.html

For whatever money you can expend on this study, instead you could get
pounds of seeds to actually sow.  The usual reproduction rate, within one
year, is 100 pounds of seed commercially produced for every pound of stock
seed that you sow.

Do starting with one pound of stock seed, sowing it, and harvesting 100
pounds then sowing that 100 pounds for more seed production, can give you
10,000 pounds of seed within two years.

Perhaps classes by someone in the seed industry who has worked with native
ecotypes before, might be useful in Florida or in other States, starting
this ecotype reproduction process?

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333