Last week, for the first time since I’ve been here (a month and a half), we unexpectedly had several days of rain.  This kept us inside, working on our sensitive plant species guide rather than doing restoration monitoring.  Dirt roads become very dangerous with even just a little bit of rain and we were getting a lot by Vale standards.  Despite our restlessness, we were all glad for the rain: the plants needed it.

Yesterday, we returned to the site of the Bonita Fire where we had previously identified several populations for potential seed collection.  The fact that we had gotten rain was very apparent here; the mountain-top flats were in full bloom in an astounding array of colors.  There were purple Alliums (wild onions), several different types of yellow Lomatiums (carrot family), lavender Erigerons (daisies), native thistles, red and yellow Eriogonum (wild buckwheat), and about four different Crepis species (hawksbeard).  Crepis modocensis had been our target species for collection and we decided that the seeds were able to be collected.  So now we have made our first collection of SOS seeds!  It seems as though all the plants are starting to seed at the same time so we have the possibility of several more collections this week.

Up until recently, I had not had a clear idea of what SOS seeds are used for except for the vague term “restoration.”  However, we got a clearer picture of that purpose several weeks ago when we visited the Oregon State University (OSU) Ag Research Station for their native seeds field day.  OSU is working with the Forest Service and BLM to try to come up with the best methods of growing native sagebrush flora to inform and encourage commercial farmers to grow these crops alongside their food stocks.  BLM and the Forest Service want to be able to buy these seeds to use to restore lands following fire or other disturbance.  This program is perhaps still in its infancy; BLM is not able to secure the quantity of seeds that it would like but perhaps, with more efficient methods of growing these plants, farmers will be more willing to consider planting them.  We learned that many Lomatium species can be grown in a field with 8 inches or less of irrigation in a summer.  Compare that with onions that need at least 40 inches!

I am looking forward to go to Chicago this weekend.  I do miss the east and although Chicago is the midwest, I like to think that its bringing me a little closer to home.  It also looks like we have a great schedule of workshops lined up for us during the week!