Getting native soil in native seeds

A few years ago while attending a native seed conference in Albuquerque I asked a simple question at during the opening lecture which caused ripples of discussion throughout the rest of the day. I asked how to include for the soil biology when working with native plant genetic material (seeds and cuttings). Not only did no one have an answer but both native plant growers and restoration practitioners both approached me afterword asking for my insights on the subject, for which I had no clue.

Plants have a symbiotic relationship with the small organisms living in the soil around their roots. Soil biota extend far beyond the area occupied by the roots and bring to the roots water, minerals and nutrients. In exchange the plants ooze from their roots offerings of sugar, made photosynthetically. Just as there is incredible diversity of plants life, there is in the soil. Plants evolve with the soil, each fine tuning their relationships so that they match. If restoration practitioners want to bring back native plants, shouldn’t they also bring back native soil?

Over the last few years I have been contemplating the question of how to include plant-soil partnerships in propagation work for restoration. I now have an idea what might work. I would like to bring two technologies together: seed pelletization and indigenous microbe compost tea. By preparing compost tea using native soil from where the genetic material is harvested, practitioners can build a large body of indigenous soil biology without extracting excessive amounts of soil. The compost tea is used as a liquid with the clay material in the palatalization process. At the end native seeds are coated in a clay material rich in indigenous microorganisms from that species native habitat.

For This project I intend to investigate efficacy and market for such an innovation. I would like to do interviews with experts, literature reviews, run experiments. I plan on bringing a team together to research, design an experiment, conduct the experiment and build relations with restoration seed farmers and practitioners. If things go well I would like to offer this product or service to seed companies or start our own seed company.