Kansas Native Seed Team Germinating in Douglas County
By Apolonia Arteaga
In 2023, the Kansas Land Trust began collaborating on a project called the Kansas Native Seed Team, which will dramatically amplify the positive impact of our conservation easements. The Kansas Native Seed Team’s mission is to aid in ecosystem restoration through collaborative seed collection, protecting and sharing the genetic diversity of the remaining 1% of native prairie in Douglas County.
Who is the Kansas Native Seed Team?
The Kansas Native Seed Team partners include:
Kansas City WildLands (KCWL)
The Kansas Land Trust
In Spring of 2023, these groups received a Douglas County Natural & Cultural Heritage Conservation Grant to establish this project. KCWL’s Seed Team served as the inspiration and model for the creation of this local Seed Team “chapter” in Douglas County.
The Haskell Greenhouse and other Indigenous leaders are also key partners of the Kansas Native Seed Team, as our collective mission is to conserve natural heritage for all peoples of Douglas County, especially those who are disproportionately affected by loss of natural spaces.
The members of the Kansas Native Seed Team are as crucial as its leadership. Right from the start the Seed Team has brought together an intergenerational community of land stewards and life-long learners, to appreciate native plants in all stages of life and to ensure a legacy of biodiverse landscapes.
Anyone interested is welcome to become a member of the Kansas Native Seed Team at any time!
Training-focused events are available, but not required. Seed Team leaders Courtney Masterson (NLRC) and Ginger Werp (KCWL) are adept at teaching volunteers while out in the field.
What does the Kansas Native Seed Team do?
The Kansas Native Seed Team sustainably collects seeds from remnant landscapes to reintroduce native vegetation to publicly accessible spaces.
Seed Team events follow seasonal cycles; seed collection begins with spring ephemerals, continues into summer, and peaks in the fall. These events will take place both on KLT easements and other remnant spaces in Douglas County. After prairies have been burnt, hayed, or dampened by snow, the seed cleaning process begins. Throughout the winter the Seed Team will meet to filter out seeds from excess vegetation collected in the field. This is an excellent opportunity to commune with friends and plants while cozy indoors, plus individuals who find it challenging to work outdoors may enjoy seed cleaning events as an opportunity to do important conservation work in a more accessible setting.
Our first Kansas Native Seed Team meeting took place on September 5th at the Winter School, which is situated just off I-70 between Lecompton and Lawrence. Over 40 eager community members gathered to learn about the goals and methods of seed collection. Participants learned how to label seed collection bags, what to bring into the field, how to tell when seeds are ready to collect, and much more. There was an abundance of spiderwort, blue sage, rose verbena, purple prairie clover, and showy tick trefoil seeds to collect at that time of year.
Another special seed collection event took place at the Earles Woodland easement in Baldwin on September 26th. Volunteers and leaders ventured through a pawpaw patch, a prairie, and into the heart of the woods, where they collected jumpseed, jack-in-the-pulpit, black walnuts, acorns, Kentucky coffee tree pods, and many more precious seeds. Thanks to this seed collection event, the genetic diversity protected on the Earles easement will be shared with neighboring restoration projects, amplifying its conservation impact across our region.
Why does locality matter?
Collecting and returning seeds within Douglas County significantly enhances the effectiveness of restoration efforts. Local ecotype seeds withstand stress better than commercially available seeds from other regions. Remnant spaces also harbor rare plants and seeds that cannot be found on the market. Collecting from remnant landscapes preserves our native biodiversity, fosters more complex ecosystems for wildlife, and contributes to soil health and clean water. Ultimately, this ensures that future generations can inherit biodiverse landscapes, a precious endowment that should not be taken for granted.
Establishing a local Seed Team also facilitates public recognition of invaluable landscapes, increasing the likelihood of their protection against development. Community health is bolstered by more opportunities to engage with nature and preserve a shared natural heritage.
Why is the Kansas Land Trust a partner on the Kansas Native Seed Team?
In this partnership, the Kansas Land Trust mediates the Seed Team’s access to easements for seed collection, allowing members to visit natural spaces in their community that are not normally open to the public. The Seed Team provides a meaningful reason to gather on protected landscapes with community, amplifying the positive impact of our conserved lands.
Furthermore, many of our easements contain restoration sites that benefit from the return of local ecotype native seeds. Even on native landscapes, conservation in Kansas is far from a passive process; conservation does not stop at restricting development. Our beloved prairies, woodlands, and wetlands have developed via millennia of active stewardship. Seed collection is a historically significant, yet often underestimated, aspect of active management and protection of native landscapes. By teaching more land stewards these practices, the Kansas Native Seed Team’s efforts ensure that conservation easements are not only protected against development, but contain vibrant, biodiverse ecosystems that are resilient in the face of climate change.
Sadly, high quality natural areas, such as those protected through KLT, are deeply fragmented across our landscape, and the native plants they hold face poor odds of survival without immediate intervention. By methodically protecting and sharing the invaluable biodiversity held on remnant landscapes, the Kansas Native Seed Team is equipping more land stewards to combat biodiversity loss, preserve our shared natural heritage, and offer hope for the future of Kansas.
Stay tuned on our Facebook or Instagram for upcoming Seed Team events – we hope to see you there!
