Native Plant Trust Launches Restoration Accelerator to Expand Seed Production

As climate change fuels increasingly severe storms, flooding, drought, wildfire, and habitat loss across the U.S., demand for native plants and seed for ecological restoration has reached unprecedented levels. To help address a critical shortage of locally adapted, locally grown native seed throughout the Northeast, Native Plant Trust (NPT) has launched the Restoration Accelerator™, a regional initiative designed to expand the production, processing, and storage of native seed for habitat restoration, conservation, and horticultural use.

“Restoring ecosystems at scale begins with seed,” says Native Plant Trust CEO Tim Johnson. “By investing in the infrastructure, partnerships, and scientific expertise needed to expand native seed production, we are helping ensure that future generations inherit landscapes that are healthier, more diverse, and more resilient than those we see today.”

Native plant communities form the foundation of healthy ecosystems, supporting pollinators and wildlife, protecting water quality, storing carbon, stabilizing soils, and helping landscapes withstand environmental change. Yet even as demand for native plants grows, the supply of locally adapted seed has struggled to keep pace.

“As the pace of ecological change increases, preserving local adaptation is increasingly important for building resilience in ecosystems. We will not win this battle by simply introducing more plants from the south. The flora of the Northeast will adapt, and we can support this process by ensuring all the pieces remain in place. Gardens, designed spaces, and restoration projects all help shepherd the ecosystems in which we live into the future by valuing the use of locally adapted native plant material,” says Uli Lorimer, Director of Horticulture at NPT.

The need is urgent. A 2023 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that ecological restoration in the 21st century will be required at a scale never before seen, as native plant communities face mounting threats from climate change and environmental degradation. At the same time, restoration practitioners, conservation organizations, government agencies, and commercial growers across the country face a well-documented shortage of native seed, often using seed mixes with non-native species designed for different regions and lacking transparency about seed origins.

The Restoration Accelerator builds upon more than three decades of NPT’s nationally recognized expertise in seed banking, conservation, and native plant propagation. Based at Nasami Farm, the organization’s nursery in western Massachusetts, the program coordinates with seed users and native plant and seed producers in Massachusetts to better understand needs and match production to demand, offering seed and plant production services to restoration practitioners (i.e., seed users) on a contract basis. Those services include wild seed collection, nursery production, and seed increase, and providing services to both new and experienced growers, including training and consultation, wild-sourced starter seed, plugs for increase plots, seed processing services, and climate-controlled seed storage. The facilities include a dedicated seed-processing building and a storage facility equipped with a cold-dry room and a long-term storage freezer, enabling growers to clean, process, and safely store large quantities of seed while maintaining viability and quality.

The initiative was born from a growing recognition that traditional methods of sourcing seed from wild populations alone cannot meet escalating demand. For decades, NPT has sustainably collected native seed from wild populations throughout New England to support conservation and restoration projects and nursery production. However, as demand for native plants has accelerated, relying solely on seed collected in the wild can place additional pressure on vulnerable plant populations.

A key focus of the Restoration Accelerator is increasing the availability of ecotypic seed — seed collected from plant populations that have adapted over time to local environmental conditions. Across New England and the broader Northeast, native plant populations possess unique genetic characteristics that help them thrive in specific soils, climates, and ecological communities. These locally adapted populations, known as ecotypes, represent an important reservoir of genetic diversity that strengthens ecosystem resilience and supports complex relationships among plants, pollinators, birds, and other wildlife. Locally grown seed limits genetic drift, supports local restoration economies, and bolsters seed supply chains.

Maintaining that genetic diversity is increasingly important as climate change alters environmental conditions across the region. Plants grown from local ecotypic seed are often better adapted to their surroundings and may be more resilient to changing weather patterns, pests, diseases, and other environmental stresses.

At Nasami Farm, NPT has established seed-increase plots for common native species, including:

• Path rush (Juncus tenuis)
• Boneset thoroughwort (Eupatorium perfoliatum)
• Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
• Blue vervain (Verbena hastata)
• Coastal Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium dubium)

Supported through funding from Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), these plots represent the first phase of a broader effort to expand seed production capacity across the Northeast.

To inform the next phase of seed production, NPT surveyed restoration practitioners from government agencies, non-profits, and the private sector to learn more about their seed needs. The survey results confirm that the demand for seed varies considerably across sectors, organizations, and project types and that target habitat and baseline site conditions heavily influence the type and amounts of plant material needed. This implies that future production efforts should be directed towards multiple outcomes, including diverse and functional seed mixes for projects that require seed addition, single-species seed offerings for targeted projects aiming to increase species richness, and container plants for projects where seed addition is not practical or possible.

To meet this variety of needs, Restoration Accelerator will use a multi-pronged approach that involves wild seed collection and seed banking, research on growing methods and production costs, and strategic partnerships with seed users, producers, and suppliers. This approach is exemplified by the recent collaboration between Restoration Accelerator and Van Berkum Nursery, a wholesale nursery based in Deerfield, NH.

“To help meet the increased demand for native seed in an ethical way, we leaned into our longstanding partnership with the team at Native Plant Trust,” notes John Gedraitus of Van Berkum Nursery. “In the process of developing our new native seed increase farm at Sanborn Hill, NPT’s guidance, along with technical assistance and seed collection, has helped us achieve our year one goal of planting nearly 60 species in the ground with some seed to be harvested this fall. Over the coming years, these harvests and this partnership will go a long way toward meeting the growing demand for seed, plugs, and finished plants with local provenance.”

Looking ahead, NPT is building a regional network of growers, conservation partners, nurseries, and restoration practitioners. Together, these efforts will help forecast future demand, increase regional production capacity, and ensure a reliable supply of locally adapted seed for ecological restoration projects throughout New England.

“Native seed is the foundation of ecological restoration,” says Johnson. “We are seeing growing demand from public agencies, conservation organizations, landscape professionals, and homeowners who want to restore habitats and build more resilient landscapes. The Restoration Accelerator addresses one of the most significant challenges facing that work today: ensuring that enough high-quality, locally adapted seed is available to meet the need. Big challenges need bold solutions and skilled partnerships. My thanks to Van Berkum Nursery for taking this step into the future with Native Plant Trust. And my thanks to the donors, foundations, and project partners working to make seed shortages a thing of the past.”

For more information about the Restoration Accelerator, please contact [email protected].