"PROGRAM for SUCCESS" - Great Basin Native Ecosystem Restoration
The Reveg Edge, consulting services, and developers of licensed ecological restoration technologies,
Box 609, Redwood City, CA 94064 (650) 325-7333

The difference between failure and success. Cheatgrass on left, or solid natives with no weeds on right.

Successful Great Basin native grass restoration relies on four basic concepts:

1. Set up test plot areas, using local genetic material. Never use seed mixes, cultivars or non-local seed.
2. Use small test plot sizes and try many different local species and varied treatments.
3. Keep planting, until you achieve successful test plots for each species.
4. Expanding successes over larger areas, using the techniques learned from the test plots. Use ecotypes collected locally by professional collectors, and contract for commercial reproduction of local seeds.

Performance standards for local Great Basin native grasses, when your planting techniques are based on successful test plot outcomes, within two years from sowing should produce the following plant diameters: Blue bunch wheatgrass = 3 inches, Great Basin wild rye = 5 inches, Indian Ricegrass = 3-5 inches, Poa = 2 inches, Sitanion = 6 inches, Thurber's Stipa = 4 inches.

If your native grass diameters are much less than these numbers after two years, start over with new test plots, to invent the techniques necessary to achieve these results.

Ecological restoration technologies and processes at http://www.ecoseeds.com/standards.html

Photos below, a successfully restored grassland, cheatgrass-free.

Photos and text copyright © 1997, 2001 and 2010 by Craig C.Dremann - web page www.ecoseeds.com/greatbasin.html

The Reveg Edge, Box 609, Redwood City, CA 94064 (650) 325-7333

Updated March 10, 2011.