Plant Materials and Vegetative Solutions for Soil Conservation (1935-2010).

The NRCS plant materials program began in 1935 with nurseries established to produce seed and plants for soil conservation projects administered by the new Soil Conservation Service (SCS).  At their peak, more than 50 nurseries in 11 regions directly supplied plant material for erosion control, forage, wildlife habitat, windbreaks, and other vegetative practices.  Franklin Crider, Director of the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Arizona during the 1920s, became interested in the erosion control characteristics of plants and shared his research with Aldo Leopold during his visit to the southwest in 1933.  Crider subsequently became the SCS nursery manager in Tucson, but quickly ascended to the national position in charge of the nursery evaluation program.  There he promulgated the policy for plant evaluation, selection, and release that continues in effect today.  In 1953, the nurseries were closed, retaining 10 plant materials centers (PMCs) devoted to conservation plant evaluation and release to the commercial seed and plant industry to support re-vegetation programs.  With environmental legislation in the 1970s, PMCs focused on restoring native plant communities on mined lands, riparian zones, estuaries, and developing plants to filter pollutants, improve nutrient cycling, control noxious weeds, among other unique needs.  The program supported the response to the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) authorized by the 1985 and subsequent farm bills, resulting in more than 40 million acres planted to conservation cover.  In the early 1990s, the program deployed the PLANTS database, quickly becoming one of the most heavily used USDA web applications. Today a network of 27 PMCs is engaged with developing vegetative solutions for improving biodiversity and genetic integrity, restoring pollinator habitat, conserving energy, growing biofuels, and providing other ecosystem services.  The program is exploring new ways to consistently provision plant data for agro-ecosystem models increasingly used for resource analysis and planning across the country.