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Collecting native seed is one of the first steps in a long lasting – yet extremely beneficial – process of making plant materials available for rehabilitating mine sites. Collecting and storing copious quantities of seeds from local species involves a variety of logistical and ecological challenges, as well as ethical ones. We asked Atlantech Senior Environmental Consultant, Samantha Hovar, about the best practice principles for collecting native seeds and what the considerations are.
What are the benefits of native seed in rehabilitation?
Establishing high-quality rehabilitation on a mine site is important for restoring ecosystem functionality and land productivity. Using local native seed can be one of the best and most beneficial ways to do this as part of a carefully planned rehabilitation program. This is because local native seed holds the unique characteristics of local genetic populations. This means the seed is adapted to, and can thrive, in the environmental conditions of the region (for example droughts, floods, and frost).
What is the biggest challenge around using native seed?
Demand for native seed is rapidly increasing with the expanding industry of carbon offset planting, biodiversity offsets and mine site rehabilitation. However, the supply of native seed is limited resulting in higher costs to purchase it. An alternative, and commonly adopted method of supply, is onsite seed collection. This may take the place of hand collection or via mechanical means. Overall, to decrease costs of restoration, planning for the mine’s closure and rehabilitation should ultimately happen before the operation even begins. This is the same for offset areas where several years of revegetation works are required in line with the Government approved works schedule.
What do you need to do before collecting native seeds on-site?
There are important considerations around collection and quality control that should be addressed before collecting native seeds from the mine site. These are listed below.
- Seed provenance: It is best to match environmental conditions such as climate, altitude, and soil at the planting site with those of the collection site. For example, seed collected from a high altitude, wet site may not grow in a low altitude, dry site.
- Permits/approvals: These may be needed from relevant authorities, particularly if the species being collected is threatened or endangered under state or federal legislation.
- Time of year: It is important to collect seed when it is mature as mature seeds retain viability for longer and immature seeds may not germinate.
- Seed amount: Do not collect more than 10% of the seed from any one plant to ensure the long-term survival of the source population is not negatively affected. There also needs to be consideration of the amount of seed stored and required for the life of a project.
How is the seed collected?
The method of collection depends on the species and how the seed is found. For example, woody capsules, seed pods, cones or grains can be collected by hand or with specialised equipment such as long-handled secateurs or a brush harvester. Pasture species are more favored to be collected with mechanical tractors and seed harvesters attached. Species collected in a day can range from a few grams to several kilograms.
It is also important to ensure good record keeping for seed traceability. At the very minimum, records should include the date, coordinates, and species collected.
Why is quality control important?
The success of plant propagation is largely dependent on seed quality. The use of non-viable or even incorrect seed species in revegetation programs can result in propagation failure, which means wasted time and money.
To avoid this, seed testing, following post-harvest processing, is used to determine the quality of seed and commonly captures:
- Purity: Can tell the portion of seed compared to the non-seed material like chaff/trash in a sample as well as the proportion of the target species in the sample.
- Seed fill: Tells whether the seed has a viable embryo, which is required for germination.
- Viability: Determines whether the percentage of seeds that are alive with the potential to germinate. Seeds that aren’t viable won’t germinate.
- Germinability: Determines the proportion of seeds that will germinate under lab conditions. Seeds may be viable but dormant and therefore will not germinate.
The Florabank Guidelines (Second Edition) provides the national benchmark for best practice in native seed collection, processing, and use.
How we can help
At Atlantech, we provide technical excellence and innovative mining and environmental consulting services. Our team of experienced environmental consultants are experienced at mine rehabilitation, offset revegetation, including in native seed collection. Please reach out to Atlantech for a confidential discussion about how we can help.
References, and for further reading on this topic, see:
- Department of Premier and Cabinet (2011), Conservation Management Notes: Seed Collecting, OEH, Sydney. Available at: https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/cpp/SeedCollecting.pdf
- Pedrini, S., D'Agui, HM., Arya, T., Turner, S. and Dixon, KW. (2022), Seed quality and the true price of native seed for mine site restoration, Restoration Ecology, 30: e13638. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/rec.13638
- Half Land (2021), Native Seeds Importance in Agriculture. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/native-seeds-importance-agriculture-half-land-#:~:text=Maintains%20Genetic%20Diversity&text=They%20easily%20modify%20themselves%20to,varieties%20as%20they%20pollinate%20naturally.
- Bruce, S., Wenger, L., and Hanrahan, B. (2023), Collecting and caring for seed from Australian native plants. Available at: (https://riversofcarbon.org.au/handy-how-to-guide-collecting-and-caring-for-seed-from-australian-native-plants/
- Commander, LE. (Ed.) (2021), Florabank Guidelines – best practice guidelines for native seed collection and use (2nd edition), Florabank Consortium: Australia. Available at: https://www.florabank.org.au/guidelines
