UPDATE people helping people grow
FEBRUARY 2014
Old Armory, Fourth & Lyon, Albany, Oregon 97321, Phone 541-967-3871
VOL. XXXIV No. 2
BRINGING BACK
Nelson’s checkermallow LOCAL SPECIALTY SEED FARMER HELPS GROW A HEALTHY HABITAT FOR NATIVE RESTORATION BY MARY STEWART
PHOTO
BY
PETER MOORE
Work in OSU Extension’s Native Seed Certification Program Preceded Nelson’s Checkermallow Project According to Melanie Gisler, Institute for Applied Ecology, work on native seed certification began prior to the Nelson’s checkermallow project. “OSU Extension’s Seed Certification Specialist Barry Schrumpf helped to guide the process for certifying large scale seed collections in the Willamette Valley in 2005.” Barry consulted with the Institute on how to document and track the seed and how to put the seed in production. “It was important for us to include seed certification to document the quality and source through testing,” says Melanie. The crop inspection phase legitimizes the seed and then a nonbiased third party takes a sample and brings it to OSU for the testing. “We can find out if there are noxious weeds and other inerts that we don’t want in the seed,” she adds.
A threatened native wildflower named Nelson’s checkermallow is repopulating open spaces on private farms and public lands thanks to the work of a local farmer who raised native plant seeds that became a companionable habitat for the wildflowers. Peter Kenagy is a North Albany farmer and an expert in growing all types of seedsincluding native plant seeds. Kenagy is producing seed varieties critical to conservation in the rich silt loam soils of his 450-acre farm on the Willamette River. While he didn’t produce the Nelson’s checkermallow seed for this project, he did raise a variety of seeds that were important to the successful growth of the checkermallow. Nelson’s checkermallow, Sidalcea nelsoniana, is a spiked perennial bearing pinkish-lavender flowers that typically bloom between late May and mid-July. The native wildflower has been listed as threatened by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) since 1993. When the recovery plan for the native checkermallow was published, several natural resource entities took on
PHOTO
BY
MARY STEWART
Peter Kenagy checks the progress of seed being conditioned in his seed cleaner. He specializes in growing seeds, including native seeds for habitat restoration. The threatened Nelson’s checkermallow, above at left, is making a comeback in the Willamette Valley thanks to the strategic efforts of Institute for Applied Ecology, OSU Extension Service, Kenagy and other natural resource entities.
the task to increase populations of the wildflower in the Willamette Valley. Institute for Applied Ecology (IAE), based in Corvallis, led the effort and engaged partners including Oregon Watershed
Enhancement Board (OWEB), USFWS, USDANatural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and private landowners. “The Nelson’s checkermallow is indigenous to the
Willamette Valley from north of Monroe up to lower southwest Washington,” says Peter Moore, Restoration Ecologist for IAE. See CHECKERMALLOW on page 2