S. minor var. minor Emanuel Co, GA
Jun 7, 2023 16:03:48 GMT -5
stevebooth, kiwiearl, and 3 more like this
Post by meizzwang on Jun 7, 2023 16:03:48 GMT -5
Here's a very interesting population of S. minor var. minor from Emanuel Co, GA. I only know of two sites in the County, both are protected, but I've only had access to genetics from one site.
The site these came from are growing on my good friend's family's property, and he's lived there his whole life! He's searched the surrounding area his whole life, knows all of the neighbor's surrounding parcels, and has not ever found any other minors within a several mile radius. There used to be flavas nearby, but those were destroyed a long time ago.
Anyways, he collected some seeds and sent them to me so that we can work on augmenting this tiny relic patch that still remains on his property. Since it's nearly impossible for private entities that aren't non-profits to do restoration work with the government, I'm working with private land owners to create a proof of concept model with the hopes of getting this work published in some scientific journals so that eventually, they'll take us "amateurs" seriously. I'm not even sure how many conservationists are aware of what horticulturalists can do these days with Sarracenia!
Here's a picture of the plants in the wild, it's on a road easement, so it won't ever be developed. Only threat is if the county ends up using herbicide in the future instead of mowing the site. Perhaps the only reason this relic patch of minors exist is because it's consistently mowed and kept from being overgrown by shrubs and other plants! Notice how small the patch of plants is, there's maybe 20 or 30 different genotypes remaining from presumably a much larger population in the past that was nearly wiped out by development/alteration of the land:
here are the babies that will be planted back at this exact site once they are big enough. We will be documenting the various methods used to put them back into the wild and measure successes as well as failures, which is bound to happen:
what is photographed is only a fraction of what's being propagated. There are close to a 1000 seedlings growing strong right now! If we can get even a few hundred to survive long term back in the wild, that would be an absolute success in my mind:
To be continued.....
The site these came from are growing on my good friend's family's property, and he's lived there his whole life! He's searched the surrounding area his whole life, knows all of the neighbor's surrounding parcels, and has not ever found any other minors within a several mile radius. There used to be flavas nearby, but those were destroyed a long time ago.
Anyways, he collected some seeds and sent them to me so that we can work on augmenting this tiny relic patch that still remains on his property. Since it's nearly impossible for private entities that aren't non-profits to do restoration work with the government, I'm working with private land owners to create a proof of concept model with the hopes of getting this work published in some scientific journals so that eventually, they'll take us "amateurs" seriously. I'm not even sure how many conservationists are aware of what horticulturalists can do these days with Sarracenia!
Here's a picture of the plants in the wild, it's on a road easement, so it won't ever be developed. Only threat is if the county ends up using herbicide in the future instead of mowing the site. Perhaps the only reason this relic patch of minors exist is because it's consistently mowed and kept from being overgrown by shrubs and other plants! Notice how small the patch of plants is, there's maybe 20 or 30 different genotypes remaining from presumably a much larger population in the past that was nearly wiped out by development/alteration of the land:
here are the babies that will be planted back at this exact site once they are big enough. We will be documenting the various methods used to put them back into the wild and measure successes as well as failures, which is bound to happen:
what is photographed is only a fraction of what's being propagated. There are close to a 1000 seedlings growing strong right now! If we can get even a few hundred to survive long term back in the wild, that would be an absolute success in my mind:
To be continued.....