Seed Banking
Jun. 16th, 2022 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithI noticed my Terramagne characters doing something interesting that is replicable with extant resources: seed banking.
First, the "seed bank" in soil is a living, depletable resource of miscellaneous seeds that have not yet sprouted. This happens when they are buried under earth, mulch, water, ice, etc. Some plants like manoomin (wild rice) have a naturally variable sprouting time to account for shifting environmental factors. The weed seed bank can be a real pain, but remember, these "bandage plants" have important jobs to do. Along with the seeds themselves, healthy soil also contains a host symbiotic fungi, microbes, detritivores, and other organisms that aid its structure and nutrients so plants can grow. While most seeds only remain viable for a few years, some last 20-40, and a few last for a century or more. If the surface plants are killed, and the exposed soil disturbed, then the uppermost layer of revealed seed bank will activate pioneer plants to recolonize the area.
When the seed bank is destroyed or removed, then the soil goes bankrupt, and that's a very bad thing. Exposed soil quickly leaches out nutrients and is highly prone to erosion. if nothing is planted, it relies on wind and wildlife to reseed the area. Even if seeds are planted on purpose, they tend to struggle without the natural support system of healthy soil. (You can see why conventional agriculture is a poor life choice.) Common examples in modern life include buying depleted land (farmed-out or clearcut land is really cheap), having yard installations like a septic tank, or moving into a new development that's been stripped down to subsoil to make construction easier. If you struggle to grow things in your urban or suburban yard, or patches of a rural yard, this may be why.
If you are dealing with bankrupt soil, it is possible to restore health. Nature takes decades or centuries; humans can do it faster. There are a variety of methods for doing this. Most of them involve sowing seeds on the surface or planting seedlings. This takes a long time to replenish the seed bank. The Bradley method works by relying on a patch of healthy plants or on the soil seed bank. If you have neither of these, though, you'll need to do something else.
Seed banking is all about reloading the seed bank. Some plants will sprout promptly, but the main goal is to restore the hidden, dormant seeds and preferably their support network of organisms. You can see also hints of this in biodynamic farming, which uses various preparations to add life and nutrients to soil. Another way to restore life is with soil innoculants.
The main limitation to seed banking is the cost. Good, weed-free native seed is expensive. However, there are some ways to save. An efficient approach is to buy a regional mix of wildflower and/or grass seeds native to your local habitat. These are available in sizes from from packet to pound to bulk. You get a lot of diversity, so something is bound to thrive, and it's cheaper than buying individual species. Some providers also sell garden packages of individual packets bundled together, which let you plant seeds in patches for better pollinator visibility.
There are several approaches to seed banking.
* Till. This method is destructive to soil, but well, it's already a wreck. It works best where there is still topsoil but it the seed bank is gone. You can add seed and innoculants before, during, or after tilling and it will wind up at different levels in the soil. Sow more heavily than the recommended amount because some will be banked rather than growing promptly.
* Drill. If you have a drill planter, it will poke holes in the soil to insert seeds and innoculants with minimal disturbance. This is good when the soil is okay except for being seedless, or when you want to diversify the seedbank in soil by returning native species in a restoration project. People use this method here, but they're planting seeds at their recommended depth. To refill the seed bank, you need to plant some seeds deeper than that so they will stay dormant.
* Core. Use a soil sampling device to take cores from a healthy area nearby and insert them into damaged soil to restore it. This is really tedious but gives great results because you are transplanting intact samples. The hard part is finding a healthy area where you can get permission to take samples.
* Sheet. The most convenient for home use, and the best at rebuilding soil structure, it's a lot of work and takes a long time but gives great results. The simplest and least expensive version is to spread a layer of seed, add a layer of healthy topsoil or compost, and then spread another layer of seed. The exposed seed will promptly sprout while the deeply covered seed becomes the bank. Due to expense, this is the most common approach for large-scale restoration, although government or tribal projects occasionally exceed that. However, you can do more. If you're making a lasagna garden, then you can insert as many layers of seed as you can afford into the many layers of the sheet mulch. Buy a generous amount of seed mix and you can probably dust all the lasagna layers. If you want to get fancy with the science and use individual species instead of a seed mix, then fill the lower layers with: weedy wildflowers that bank well, larger seeds with a longer dormant life, and double-dormant species known to need 2+ warm/cold cycles of stratification before sprouting. On the top, put some of the same species and also your smaller, more delicate, or faster sprouting seeds.
One entertaining result of seed banking is that you get surprises. Without separating the seed types, you have no idea what will grow where. It can be fun to play "guess the plant' with a botanical guidebook. In some areas like my wildflower garden, I have planted so many things that sometimes stuff sprouts that I don't remember. In others like the prairie garden, random things sprout from the seed bank and/or wildlife deliveries, in addition to what I've planted. I certainly did not plant the cup plants but they are spectactular.
First, the "seed bank" in soil is a living, depletable resource of miscellaneous seeds that have not yet sprouted. This happens when they are buried under earth, mulch, water, ice, etc. Some plants like manoomin (wild rice) have a naturally variable sprouting time to account for shifting environmental factors. The weed seed bank can be a real pain, but remember, these "bandage plants" have important jobs to do. Along with the seeds themselves, healthy soil also contains a host symbiotic fungi, microbes, detritivores, and other organisms that aid its structure and nutrients so plants can grow. While most seeds only remain viable for a few years, some last 20-40, and a few last for a century or more. If the surface plants are killed, and the exposed soil disturbed, then the uppermost layer of revealed seed bank will activate pioneer plants to recolonize the area.
When the seed bank is destroyed or removed, then the soil goes bankrupt, and that's a very bad thing. Exposed soil quickly leaches out nutrients and is highly prone to erosion. if nothing is planted, it relies on wind and wildlife to reseed the area. Even if seeds are planted on purpose, they tend to struggle without the natural support system of healthy soil. (You can see why conventional agriculture is a poor life choice.) Common examples in modern life include buying depleted land (farmed-out or clearcut land is really cheap), having yard installations like a septic tank, or moving into a new development that's been stripped down to subsoil to make construction easier. If you struggle to grow things in your urban or suburban yard, or patches of a rural yard, this may be why.
If you are dealing with bankrupt soil, it is possible to restore health. Nature takes decades or centuries; humans can do it faster. There are a variety of methods for doing this. Most of them involve sowing seeds on the surface or planting seedlings. This takes a long time to replenish the seed bank. The Bradley method works by relying on a patch of healthy plants or on the soil seed bank. If you have neither of these, though, you'll need to do something else.
Seed banking is all about reloading the seed bank. Some plants will sprout promptly, but the main goal is to restore the hidden, dormant seeds and preferably their support network of organisms. You can see also hints of this in biodynamic farming, which uses various preparations to add life and nutrients to soil. Another way to restore life is with soil innoculants.
The main limitation to seed banking is the cost. Good, weed-free native seed is expensive. However, there are some ways to save. An efficient approach is to buy a regional mix of wildflower and/or grass seeds native to your local habitat. These are available in sizes from from packet to pound to bulk. You get a lot of diversity, so something is bound to thrive, and it's cheaper than buying individual species. Some providers also sell garden packages of individual packets bundled together, which let you plant seeds in patches for better pollinator visibility.
There are several approaches to seed banking.
* Till. This method is destructive to soil, but well, it's already a wreck. It works best where there is still topsoil but it the seed bank is gone. You can add seed and innoculants before, during, or after tilling and it will wind up at different levels in the soil. Sow more heavily than the recommended amount because some will be banked rather than growing promptly.
* Drill. If you have a drill planter, it will poke holes in the soil to insert seeds and innoculants with minimal disturbance. This is good when the soil is okay except for being seedless, or when you want to diversify the seedbank in soil by returning native species in a restoration project. People use this method here, but they're planting seeds at their recommended depth. To refill the seed bank, you need to plant some seeds deeper than that so they will stay dormant.
* Core. Use a soil sampling device to take cores from a healthy area nearby and insert them into damaged soil to restore it. This is really tedious but gives great results because you are transplanting intact samples. The hard part is finding a healthy area where you can get permission to take samples.
* Sheet. The most convenient for home use, and the best at rebuilding soil structure, it's a lot of work and takes a long time but gives great results. The simplest and least expensive version is to spread a layer of seed, add a layer of healthy topsoil or compost, and then spread another layer of seed. The exposed seed will promptly sprout while the deeply covered seed becomes the bank. Due to expense, this is the most common approach for large-scale restoration, although government or tribal projects occasionally exceed that. However, you can do more. If you're making a lasagna garden, then you can insert as many layers of seed as you can afford into the many layers of the sheet mulch. Buy a generous amount of seed mix and you can probably dust all the lasagna layers. If you want to get fancy with the science and use individual species instead of a seed mix, then fill the lower layers with: weedy wildflowers that bank well, larger seeds with a longer dormant life, and double-dormant species known to need 2+ warm/cold cycles of stratification before sprouting. On the top, put some of the same species and also your smaller, more delicate, or faster sprouting seeds.
One entertaining result of seed banking is that you get surprises. Without separating the seed types, you have no idea what will grow where. It can be fun to play "guess the plant' with a botanical guidebook. In some areas like my wildflower garden, I have planted so many things that sometimes stuff sprouts that I don't remember. In others like the prairie garden, random things sprout from the seed bank and/or wildlife deliveries, in addition to what I've planted. I certainly did not plant the cup plants but they are spectactular.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-06-17 09:49 am (UTC)Unfortunately, I never got to go back, so I still have no idea what an actual *mature* cup plant looks/feells like as the ones I planted were seedlings.
This is good information to have-even for other levels. There are certain places on our inn islands that could very much be replenished this way.
Any way to do this for trees/other things? Perhaps not the same methods, but one of the forests we have is...very slowly dying out because the eldest trees have run their life courses and no one seems to be paying attention to the warnings we give the many groundskeepers. I mean, maybe they're listening and planting seeds where we can't see, but I thought I would be able to sense that, y'know?
-T~