At arboRise we are fascinated by seeds, which are so gentle, yet so powerful sleeping organisms. Worldwide 350 millions of hectares need restoration because they have been burnt, mined, built up, etc. Think about the wildfires in Greece, Spain or Canada... For that we will need billions of seeds of all plant varieties (not only trees!).
But how does this work? what are the steps from getting the seeds from the fields until plantation? Who should be involved? Which skills and competences are required??
Our American friends are impressive when it comes to putting real solutions in place. What is Europe doing to restore the burnt areas? What is Switzerland doing?
Feel free to watch the whole documentary in one shot, or step by step.
Here arboRise' key learnings from each short film:?
- Before harvesting seeds you need to know why and what you will do with the seeds
- Seeds should be sourced in the same seed zone as the restoration area, to have plant adapted to the climate. And from several different seed populations in the same seed zone, to get genetic diversity. At arboRise we harvest next to the restoration site, from several seed trees :-)
- The problem of the native seed supply chain is the volatility of the demand: the farmers can’t plan their revenues. The solution is forward contracting in order to guarantee a stable revenue for the seed harvesters. At arboRise the seed families know 3 years in advance which quantity we will buy and to which price
- Dispatch the team in the whole area of the seed collection site
- Don’t take more than 20% of the seeds from the seed collection site
- Collect evenly and randomly: all kinds of seeds of the seed you want to collect (i.e. don’t focus on the seed trees that attract your attention because they are big our colorful: pick seeds from a diversity of seed trees of the same species)
- Collect from at least 50 different plants of the same species to have genetic diversity
- Make the cut test, on the field, to ensure that the seeds you collect are viable
- Adapt the collection gesture to the species: you may need to pick the seed on the branches with you hand, or you may use a tennis racket to punch the tree branches so that the seeds fall in your bag, or you may want to use a bag attached with a rope around your neck to have both hands free to pick the seeds
- The bags have to be open to breath: you don’t want moisture to come in. Use paper bags.
- Don’t let your harvest in a hot car.
- Harvest seeds of the same species from multiple locations to get genetic diversity
- Clean the seeds, take out the weeds and then sow the diverse seeds of a same species on one field (“monoculture” of this species)
- Take the weeds out of this culture
- Then harvest the seeds (according to the right time and right technique for this species) in this spot
- Clean the seeds, take out the plant material and the weeds, dry and store the diversified seed material
- Use this “monoculture” maximum 3 years and then replace it with fresh new seeds from the wild
- Most plants can’t reproduce without bees (only conifers and weeds use wind for reproduction. They are 3 kinds of bees:
- Honeybee: highly socialized, division of labor, nest, queen, etc.
- Bumblebee: a less sohphisticated organization, more brutal and aggressive
- Solitary bees: live alone, don’t meet their offspringAll kind of bees are essential for pollination of most of our plants.
Film 6: Cleaning and Storage https://youtu.be/B0t9NP7aMlg
- First step: extraction = take the seed out of the pod, the cone, etc. (technique depends on the species)
- Second step: remove the propelling appendices and keep only the seed
- Third step: finishing = remove anything which is not a seed
- Fourth step: testing = with X-ray to see the % of seeds which are filled with reproduction material
- Fifth step: freezing all recalcitrant seeds, which need moisture to remain viable, and dry the rest to be stored
Film 7: Testing and certification https://youtu.be/YlwJQRvJeaw
- Purity: you weight the seeds on a divider and it separated the desired seeds, the weed seeds, the other crops seeds and the inert material
- Viability: you make a TZ test to measure how many seeds are living
- Germination test: you measure the germination rate
- Seeds may have problems germinating: predators, pathogens, frost, soil crust, etc. à seed enhancement technologies
- seed coating with fungicides
- seed pelleting to homogenize the weight
- seed encrusting so that it flows better
- seed coating with azomite and compost to make seedballs
- breaking dormancy so that seeds germinate all at once
- Mixing seeds with treatments and seeds without treatment to raise the odds that some seeds will germinate at the proper time
- But at arboRise we have proven that these treatments don’t work...
Film 9: Seeding and Planting https://youtu.be/bbdS1a_4EL4
- Depth of the seed and density of seed per hectare, according to the species
- The elimination of the annual species is the real issue, to prevent competition
- Aerial seeding: 22’000 acres with 4 airplanes in 6 days
- Seeding on Wetlands
- Seedlings (in Idaho, where native plants are essential for tribes)
In Europe and Switzerland we need a real restoration strategy because wildfires will increase and destroy even more hectares. Who will do the first step?
#seeds #restoration #fires #reforestation #
