Nursery Manual for Native Plants; A Guide for Tribal Nurseries

In 2001, the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), through its Virtual Center for Reforestation, Nurseries, and Genetics Resources (RNGR), invited Native Americans from across the United States to attend the Western Forest and Conservation Nursery Association annual meeting. About 25 tribal members, representing 20 tribes, attended the meeting at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.The following year, a similar meeting was held in Olympia, Washington, and tribal members initiated a Tribal Nursery Council and requested that RNGR facilitate the organization. During 2003, RNGR requested information from 560 tribes across the United States, seeking specific information on tribes’ needs for native plants, facilities, training, and so on. Results from the responding 77 tribes were incorporated into the Tribal Nursery Needs Assessment. Based on the results of that questionnaire, and input from tribal members attending the 2003 Intertribal Nursery Council meeting in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, it was agreed that a nursery handbook was needed. That fall, planning began for writing the manual, loosely based on Agriculture Handbook 674, The Container Tree Nursery Manual, but with special attention to the uniqueness of Native American cultures. The handbook is divided into four main sections: Getting Started, Developing a Nursery, Growing Plants, and Problem Solving. During development of the handbook, and with input from the Intertribal Nursery Council, the production team decided to split the handbook into two volumes. This first volume, Nursery Management, contains 17 chapters devoted to that topic, whereas the second volume will include nearly 300 protocols for propagating native plants important to, and identified by, the tribes for cultural, medicinal, and restoration purposes. Together, these two volumes should provide a solid foundation for Native Americans and others interested in producing native plants to do so.