[RWG] NOTES: Summary of Nov 16th 2005 PCA Meeting

[Olivia Kwong]

The notes below will be added to the website sometime next week.

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Notes from PCA General Meeting
16 November 2005
NatureServe, Rosslyn, Va.
(Notes taken by P. De Angelis)

PCA Chair, Peggy Olwell (BLM) was unable to attend. Olivia Kwong (Center 
for Plant Conservation/PCA) opened the meeting with introductions. Sign-up 
sheet passed around.

New/returning participants
Scott Lambert, BLM, Boise (speaker)
Sara Dedekam  Moved here from Glacier Park (Montana), where she was a 
native plant nursery manager

Handouts

-Commonly Used Acronyms: A list of acronyms commonly used in PCA 
discussions now posted on PCA website http://www.nps.gov/plants/acronyms.htm.
Additions to the list should be sent to Olivia 
(plant at plantconservation.org).  Suggestion that Cooperator 
list should be tri-national to reflect North American focus of PCA.

- Chicago Botanic Garden (CBG) Internship Program: Information about the 
coming year's intern program.  See Announcements (below).

-MPWG Chair List: Lists the chairs of various MPWG committees.

-"Using local seeds in Prairie Restoration."  Gustafson, D.J., D.J Gibson, 
and D.L. Nickrent.  2005.  Native Plants Spring 2005: 25-28.

-"How local is local?  A Review of Practical and Conceptual Issues in the 
Genetics of Restoration."  McKay, J.K., C.E. Christian, S. Harrison, K.J. 
Rice.  Restoration Ecology (13)3: 432-440.

-"Guidebook to the Seeds of Native and Non-native Grasses, Forbs, and 
Shrubs of the Great Basin."  Lambert, S.  BLM, Boise, Idaho.  Available 
at: http://www.id.blm.gov/techbuls/05_04/

Events

-NGO Meeting Report: PCA Cooperator's Conference: St. Louis, MO  Nov. 7-9, 
2005 http://www.nps.gov/plants/2005pcaconference
This 3-day working meeting intended to brought together nonfederal PCA 
Cooperators to discuss their role in PCA.  There were about 40 attendees, 
including several MPWG members.  A follow-up summary and opportunities for 
additional input are in the works.

-Meeting Report: Global Partnership for Plant Conservation: Dublin Ireland 
Oct 22-25, 2005 http://www.plants2010.org/
Explored how Botanic Gardens will address the Global Strategy for Plant 
Conservation.
-Gary Krupnik attended on behalf of Smithsonian.  European Plant 
Conservation Strategy was discussed.  Would like to see museums and 
herbaria be more involved.
-PCA has a Strategy for Plant Conservation that Peggy can elaborate on at 
next meeting.**  But, there is definitely a role for museums and herbaria 
in the North American Strategy.
-Proceedings: 
http://www.botanicgardens.ie/gspc/gppc/dbnpresent/summary.htm

-Botanical Society of Washington (BSW) Annual Banquet  Smithsonian Natural 
History - Wed., Dec. 7, 2005
Open to all; reception and dinner, $40; http://www.botsoc.org/

-National Weed Awareness Week: Feb. 26-Mar. 3, 2005

Announcements

-Chicago Botanic Garden (CBG) Intern program: 
http://www.chicagobotanic.org/research/conservation/blm/applying.html
This year, NPS will also have interns; about 5 interns will have the 
opportunity to follow-up the internship with a 5-month internship in 
Australia.

-New book: Plant Conservation: A Natural History Approach.  Krupnik, G.A. 
and W.J. Kress, eds.  Discusses the role of museums, botanic gardens, etc. 
in plant conservation. 
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/151304.ctl

-Potomac Gorge: New National Park Service pamphlet and recent (11-14-2005) 
Washington Post article on Potomac Gorge ; Potomac Gorge was the subject 
of a previous PCA (See September PCA Meeting Summary: 
http://www.nps.gov/plants/summary.htm);.

Updates on Activities

   - Alien Plant (Olivia Kwong for Jil Swearingen)
       - Peer review and editing of fact sheets continues

   - Medicinal Plant (Patricia De Angelis)
       - Many aspects of website are being worked on right now with the
         goal of launching revamped and new webpages in 2006
       - Fact Sheets  nearing final draft of first revamped fact sheet on
         goldenseal
       - Symp III  may need to postpone
       - Sustainable Production Committee  reactivating; held a conference
         call with several members to review strategy and determine new
         action items

   - Native Plant Materials (Olivia Kwong for Peggy Olwell)
       - Cooperator Meeting  passed around rough notes
       - Kathryn Kennedy will give more detailed report

   - NFWF (Ellen Lippincott, NFWF)
       - 60 full proposals were requested for projects totaling $1.2
         million
       - approximately $250-250k to disperse; should be decided by the end
         of the month
       - 2006 pre-proposals will be mid-Feb. and August

       Comment: Pre-proposal is complicated and practically amounts ot a
       full proposal; Ellen will raise this issue at NFWF

   - Outreach (Chair not present)
       - New Chair: Flo Oxley  Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center (TX),
         Director of Conservation / Education
       - Has several ideas for more focused outreach efforts

   - Restoration (Chair not present)
       - Discussed at NGO meeting

   - MOU
       - No news; working to get through several agencies


Speaker

Scott Lambert  BLM Seed Coordinator, Boise, Idaho
The Great Basin has historically been referred to as the Great American 
desert.  It has been subjected to overgrazing, drought, mineral 
extraction, and other activities that have damaged the landscape.

The area is primarily public land.  BLM became responsible for the Great 
basin in the late 40s.  The environment was further degraded using 
introduced species. Erosion control and forage were the main goals at that 
time  and it involved planting mostly non-natives.  Some natives, such as 
bluebunch wheatgrass and saltbush were used.

Including Alaska, 90% of BLMs land is located in 12 western states, 
covering approximately 265 million acres.  Includes habitat for the basin 
big sagebrush, which is considered one of the top twenty endangered 
ecosystems in the US.  (Side note: The twigs are used in ceremonies as an 
air purifier and smudging.)

In the 90s, more emphasis was placed on natives.  Funding is tied to the 
DOI fire program and needs were driven by natural disasters. Where weeds 
are not a problem, they allowed natural recolonization.  In 1990, about 
native species were being used in 1990.  Last year 115 species were used, 
75% of them native.

BLM requires "source identified seed."  The seed storage warehouse in 
Boise can store 1 million pounds of seed.  No noxious weeds are allowed 
and weed seed in lots are limited to 0.5% (this is more stringent than 
some states which allow up to 2% weed seed in seed lots).  Over ten years, 
an average of 2.2 million pounds of seed were purchased.

Some of the top seeds used in 2005:
-Secar snake river wheatgrass
-Hycrest crested wheatgrass
-Vavilov Siberian wheatgrass
-Nezpar Indian ricegrass
-Anatone bluebunch wheatgrass
-Appar blue flax (Non-native; up until last year, this species was 
believed to be a native!  There is a native Maple Grove Lewis flax that 
they will be moving toward replacing this with.)
-Delar small burnet (Eurasian  used in salads)
-Sandburg's bluegrass (Native)
-Bottlebrush squirreltail (There are several subspecies, so they get 
pretty specific about what they want.)
-Wyoming big sagebrush
-Alfalfa (Still being used because not enough seed stock for natives as 
yet)
-Fourwing saltburush (Also used in cooking and as a smudge)
-Forage kochia (Erosion control)
-Wooly plantain (Cultivated in India and sold at $5/pound (it's a 
medicinal plant; BLM only wants wild-collected SW seed - $100/pound)

BLM uses EPA ecoregions (mostly level II, some level IV).  Some seed folks 
were concerned about ecoregions because they were afraid their market 
would be limited.  Turns out, that many vendors like this like this 
because they can specialize in certain areas  SEE SEED GUIDE BOOK 
(http://www.id.blm.gov/techbuls/05_04/).

Measuring success: Field office teams monitor individual projects.l 
Developed a national strategy to conduct this monitoring but not sure if 
it will get funded to be implemented this year.

Discussion

Weed Seed Allowances: Larry Stritch (USFS): Scott mentioned using the 12 
states noxious weed list to make sure don't get weeds.  FS learned this 
the hard way by getting seed from another state that was weed-free in 
Colorado (where they bought it) but was not weed-free in Arizona (where 
being used).

Natives as Niche Market Opportunity:  90% of garden seeds are grown 
overseas (i.e Burpee)  another avenue for weed seed entry.  The FS native 
seed needs give niche growers an opportunity to diversify income, 
especially on shrubs/forbs - guarantee to buy 50% of production in first 
three years.  Established growers are hired as "grow out" contractors and 
are guaranteed 100% sale.

Planning for native seed needs: Only about 15% of seed needs are known in 
advance because needs are still largely disaster-driven.  How do producers 
plan if BLM/FS doesn't know their needs?  Producers forecast, sometimes 
have extra, sometimes don't.  Also, the FS is currently narrowing down a 
list of 15-20 "workhorse species"  so they're not asking for 100s of 
species.

Sara Tangren: Working with MD State highways.  Is there any published 
information that shows how local seed needs (ecoregions) are good for 
local growers?  Bonnie Harper-Lore has done a lot of work on using natives 
in highway projects.  There may be a crop improvement program in Maryland 
and there is a Maryland plant materials center (John Englert).

Funding: George Washington/Jefferson National Forests is dealing with 
"cane" restoration and has gotten funding from NPMD; most NPMD is being 
done in the west.

Protocols: A problem for native seed growers is finding cultivation 
protocols.  Many protocols have been published for western ecotypes and 
those protocols don't necessarily work here.  The Native Plants Journal 
website has thousands of germination protocols there. **Vicky Erickson 
would be a good speaker on these issues.**

Competing with nonnative industry: Another difficulty facing native seed 
growers is competing with large trade associations that do not seem to be 
completely on board with natives yet.