My name is Brooke Fleischman.
I'm the State Seed coordinator of Vermont
based out of the Intervale Center's Conservation Nursery.
And I'm Jess Colby,
the Riparian Lands Project Coordinator
at NorthWoods Stewardship Center.
Today we'll be talking about the Vermont Seed Program,
as a part of the Riparian Lands Partnership.
We will review our project timeline, work to date,
and discuss some challenges and opportunities
of this work in the future.
This work wouldn't be possible
without the financial support
of the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission,
thanks to Senator Leahy efforts, Vermont Fish and Wildlife,
and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Together, we collect, process,
and store locally adapted, native tree and shrub seeds
for Riparian Forest Restoration projects across the state.
We work closely with local conservation nurseries
on native plant propagation,
such as the Intervale Conservation Nursery,
and the Essex County NRCD nursery.
In addition to working with nurseries,
many seeds go towards direct seeding trials,
with Vermont Fish and Wildlife,
as an experimental alternative restoration approach
to planting bare root tree stock.
To track our collection information,
the Intervale Center houses a database
of map seeds, source locations, and phenology data,
compiled from NorthWoods,
the Nature Conservancy, and the Intervale Center.
Every year we expand our collection locations
to keep genetic diversity at top of mind.
In 2015, the first cornfield replication experiments
started at Willoughby Falls Wildlife Management Area,
with Vermont Fish and Wildlife,
and Fritz Gerhardt of Beck Pond, LLC.,
now with the Connecticut River Conservancy.
The experimental fields were prepped
to allow natural regeneration of species,
and recently abandoned,
or disturbed agricultural fields with bere soil.
In 2017, direct seeding trials started
at the LaPlatte Town Forest,
in partnership with the Intervale Center,
US Fish and Wildlife, Vermont Fish and Wildlife,
and the Nature Conservancy.
While the principles were sound,
and early trials looked promising,
they struggled to identify seed collection sites,
and gather enough seed to use in these trials.
In 2020, like with many other projects,
the direct seeding trials were halted by COVID-19,
and due to past issues surrounding collecting enough seed
to make the project work.
This sparked even more conversation
around a need for seed collection efforts in the state.
In 2021, NorthWoods Stewardship Center
began collecting seeds
for these direct seeding trials.
And in 2022,
NorthWoods housed its eight eight-month
Riparian Lands crew,
comprised of Rob Fitch and Rona Thompson.
During their field season,
they were able to develop protocols,
and expand collection locations, for each target species.
By the end of the season,
roughly 30 million seeds from 19 different species
had been collected.
In January, 2023, I started my position
as the state seed coordinator,
based out of the Intervale Center,
to coordinate more collaborative efforts
among partners towards native seeds.
Following the success of 2022's long season crew,
NorthWoods once again housed a Riparian Lands crew,
between March and November.
This year's crew members Alex Sale, and Jake Gallinger,
were able to continue where Robin Rona left off,
and expanded locations for collection.
They also assisted with fine tuning our protocols,
and gathering information.
With more refined cleaning protocols,
we are able to get a more accurate count
of seeds collected this year,
which came out to be around 56 million,
from 21 different species.
Direct seeding trials have continued
with our first fall application at three new sites,
in Canaan and Wilcott, Vermont,
with Vermont Fish and Wildlife,
and in Morgan, Vermont,
with the Memphremagog Watershed Association.
At the Intervale Center Conservation Nursery,
approximately 70,000 propagules were started in greenhouses,
and later transplanted into the production field.
We've been expanding our functions every year,
and plan to continue this trajectory in years to come.
Our target species list was chosen based on top sellers
from the Intervale Conservation Nursery,
overall con conversations with partners,
and data from
"Plant Material Sourcing Needs for Riparian Forest,
and Wetland Restoration in Vermont,"
a report published by the Watershed Forestry Partnership
in 2021.
We'll continue to expand our target list as we grow,
and build out capacity.
By the first week in June,
we are hectically coordinating crews
to collect silver maple, cottonwood, and balsam poplar.
which are all dropping at the same time.
Fall collections are a lot more relaxed,
as the seeds tend to hold on a bit longer
than the spring species do.
September and October are spent prioritizing speckled alder,
birch, cedar, and viburnum.
As we learn more about the species on our target list,
we have begun to use various types
of seed cleaning equipment.
We'll talk a little bit more
about three of our most used methods.
Our partnership began purchasing,
and building out sea cleaning equipment in 2021,
when the Intervale Center bought a Dybvig seed cleaner,
Northwood Stewardship Center followed suit
and bought their own Dybvig in 2022,
along with a commercial fridge to store clean seeds.
This piece of equipment
specializes in cleaning large quantities of fruity material
for species such as cherry,
dogwood, and viburnum, by macerating them.
There's a plate at the bottom of the machine
that separates and holds seeds
while releasing any fruity pulp,
or vegetative material,
as with the chokecherry pictured.
Both groups work together with the USDA's
Plant Introduction Research Center in Ames, Iowa,
to construct an air column blower,
to clean the fluffier spring species such as willow, aspen,
cottonwood, and balsam poplar.
The air compressor forces air to circulate seeds
around a cylindrical container.
We placed various size screens at the bottom,
so that seeds fall through into a collection bin,
while the fluff and pods remain in the column.
You can see Meg Carter,
NorthWoods Conservation Science Director, with the setup,
in the bottom left hand corner of the slide.
This technique drastically reduces storage space,
makes propagation much easier in nursery practice,
and minimizes wind dispersal of the seeds
in direct seed applications.
To clean seeds from species such as birch, alder,
cedar, tamarack, and fur.
the Intervale Center purchased a Clipper seed cleaner,
in 2023.
The Clipper utilizes two sets of vibrating screens,
and a blower,
to separate the seeds from other plant materials.
In the lower left photo, the top bucket is pre-cleaned seed.
Once it has run through the Clipper,
you are left with the lower left bucket
of mostly clean seed,
and the lower right bucket,
With bract, and other seed bearing materials separated.
In 2024, the Intervale Center will host its first crew
in the spring,
expanding our capacity for scouting, and collection efforts,
during the busy spring season.
There are two positions available,
and the job will be posted after the new year,
so stay tuned for more information then.
NorthWoods will host its third long season
Riparian Lands crew,
with Alex and Jake returning as crew members.
With a year of knowledge already under their belts,
they'll continue to boost capacity within the program.
Another direct seed application
will be carried out in the spring at the Canaan, Morgan,
and Wilcott sites.
In fall 2024, an additional two sites
will be added to the direct seeding trials.
We are building out our network
by connecting with folks from local nurseries,
the Northeast Seed Network,
the Ash Protection Program,
the Ash Protection Collaboration of Cross Wabanonik,
the USDA's National Plant Germ Plasm System,
Canada's National Tree Seed Center, and many more.
As we learn more about seed collection, cleaning,
and storage methods, we are identifying equipment
that we need to be more efficient in our efforts.
For example, we are prioritizing
a different air column blower
to separate full viable seeds
from underdeveloped, or empty seeds.
This can ensure that we are working
with pure live seeds in our projects.
Most of all, our hope is to collect more seeds,
to expand our ability to help partners across the state.
Shortly after the new year,
partners will come together at a strategic planning meeting,
to discuss future visions and goals.
From this meeting, we'll come up with actionable items
that we can take to meet those goals.
To understand the demand,
and work to support the overall
native plant material supply.
We have developed the Vermont Seed Needs survey.
If you work in a nursery,
or as a restoration practitioner,
please consider filling out the survey
at the end of our presentation,
by scanning the respective QR code.
Responses will inform
the strategic planning meeting in January,
and help us further our development
towards providing locally sourced native plants
for restoration purposes across the state.
If you have any questions,
or wish to connect over native seed efforts,
please don't hesitate to reach out
to either Brooke or I, via our emails listed below.
Thank you so much for your time.
We'll go ahead and pull up this survey QR codes,
and leave it open for questions.
[Moderator] Great, thank you so much.
We have about five minutes for questions.
Yep?
[Participant] I have two short questions:
Can people buy seeds from you?
And are you gonna do herbaceous species in the future?
We are not currently selling seeds
to folks at the moment,
just because we don't have any protocols in place
of how to sell seed.
That's definitely something we're working on at the moment,
and it's gonna be a part of our strategic planning meeting.
Hopefully within the next year or two,
we'll be able to start distributing seeds out to people.
But right now it's within our direct projects.
So sorry to say that, at the moment.
I wish we could be selling seed.
And we're hoping to be starting
to mix in some herbaceous plants in as well.
I know that the Intervale Conservation Nursery
already wants to start growing some herbaceous plants
within our bare root stock that we sell, not as bare root,
but in flats.
So it's going to be mixed in as we build out capacity.
We're really only working
with a handful of people at the moment.
So we'll start expanding our species lists
once we get that build of capacity.
[Momderator] You have a question?
[Second Participant] Do you account for varieties,
or any sort of DNA type of thing?
Yeah, so as a part of our seed map,
everything is tracked from where things were collected.
And so we don't separate individuals in collections,
but we separate populations.
So we'll only leave things separated
if they're from a certain area,
and keep that track throughout,
into our application of those projects.
[Third Participant] Brooke, can you expand on that?
Like what, what sort of area are you talking about?
Like how far out are you gonna go,
with the planting site versus the collection site?
Right, yeah, so generally,
if we're collecting from somewhere in the Champlain Valley,
we won't be applying that into a project
that's in the very northeast corner of Vermont.
We like to keep things like,
we go by the Northeast Seed Zones.
That was something
that was released by the USDA, I believe,
out of the University of Pennsylvania.
And so there's four quadrants within Vermont
that we stay within.
So if a seed was collected within one quadrant,
it doesn't go outside of that quadrant
for planting projects.
[Fourth Participant] Yeah, I apologize if I missed this,
but I was curious, are these seeds being collected
and then propagated in a nursery for planting,
or are you also using them in like a piece of equipment,
such as like a seed drill or something like that?
Yeah, both.
So since I'm based out of the Intervale Center,
we work really closely
with the conservation nursery there,
and provide all of the seed materials for propagation
that will later be sold for restoration projects.
But we also work directly with Vermont Fish and Wildlife
on direct seeding trials.
So part of that is with hydro seeding,
as well as just hand casting into fields,
onto bare root or bare soil.
I know that the Nature Conservancy was using a seed drill
at one point, but we currently don't have that in practice,
[Fifth Participant] I was gonna ask,
if you are moving soil during this whole process,
and forgive me, I got here a little bit late,
so I maybe missed this,
but do you take any precautions
moving something like jumping worms
when you're moving plant material
from one place to another?
Yeah, that's a good question.
I don't know if Pete is in the crowd at the moment.
Maybe he could answer that question?
[Pete] We collect seeds only.
[Fifth Participant] Okay.
[Pete] So when we're there in this field,
they're not collecting plants, just the seeds.
[Participant] And then they're being propagated somewhere
and then planted back out into the sites?
[Pete] Yes.
[Fifth Participant] Okay.
And and that all bare root?
[Pete] Mostly of these are direct seed.
[Fifth Participant] Okay.
[Pete] So we're caging in seed
to put them right on the ground.
[Fifth Participant] All right, gotcha.
[Pete] But they also bring them to two nurseries,
one at the Intervale, and the other one at at six NRCD.
And so those sites also get seeds
and they're planted.
So they might be bare root, mostly.
[Fifth Participant] All right.