The Nevada Native Seed Partnership (NNSP) is a coalition of agencies and organizations in Nevada that work together with the vision of keeping Nevada lands diverse and functioning by using the right seed in the right place at the right time. By implementing the Nevada Seed Strategy, the NNSP’s mission is to increase the availability and use of genetically appropriate seed to restore diverse plant communities and sustainable landscapes across the state.
The NNSP includes federal and state agencies, nonprofits, conservation districts, and the University of Nevada, Reno. The NNSP began in 2016 with informal meetings between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Forest Service, with representatives meeting to discuss shared interests in Nevada native seed. The NNSP quickly expanded to include additional partners, and began holding monthly meetings in the fall of 2017. Check out this fact sheet about the NNSP.
Native Seed Forums
Click here to access upcoming and past year’s events.
The Nation’s Native Seed Shortage Is a Big Roadblock to Ecological Restoration | Audubon - Audubon, March 6, 2023
The Window for Saving the Sagebrush Ecosystem is Rapidly Closing | Audubon - Audubon, Spring 2023
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released "An Assessment of Native Seed Needs and the Capacity for Their Supply: Final Report" in January 2023. The report completes the second and final stage of the study, which began in 2020, and was sponsored by the Bureau of Land Management. The Nevada Native Seed Partnership is a featured partnership in this report.
Seed zones are a mapped area with fixed boundaries in which seeds or plant materials can be transferred to or moved within freely with the expectation that they will grow and reproduce successfully and will not produce adverse genetic effects. There are two types of seed zones: provisional and empirical. Provisional seed zones are based on climate variables and used for species for which empirical seed zones have not been developed. Empirical seed zones are species specific, based on a species’ genetic variation as well as climate variables. To view and acquire data on seed zones, click here.
Native Seed Definitions
Native plants and their seeds are the building blocks of ecosystems - they are the integral components of our iconic landscapes, and provide essential habitat and food sources for our wildlife. Native plants are adapted to the local precipitation, temperature, and soil conditions where they naturally occur. Because these conditions vary across the range of a plant species, different populations of the same species often adapt to different environmental conditions. These adaptations can be expressed in the genetics of plants and inherited across generations. Thus, these native plants are uniquely suited to growing in the environment where they originate and may be maladapted or unable to thrive under different environmental conditions. When putting native seed on the landscape, we strive to use the right seed at the right place for specific site conditions so that our landscapes can recover from disturbance and stressors.
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