The Natural Resource Conservation Service maintains several Plant Materials Centers throughout the country, for the purposes of developing new solutions to conservation problems with native plants, according to Assistant Manager Melinda Brakie. She said that the ETPMC can take a handful of seeds harvested from the wild and develop a new release of a native plant that can resist drought or invasion by non-native plants. Plant Materials Centers like ETPMC release these new strains to commercial seed developers and non-profit groups, helping to improve agricultural yields, restore native prairies and much more.
Melinda showed us the ETPMC's interesting method of treating their wastewater: specially engineered beds of water-loving plants that soak up effluent and clean the water again, without a single moving part or artificial chemical. She also gave us a tour of the seed lab, where seeds are analyzed and germinated, as well as their seed sorting machine that uses air a specialized sieves to separate the seed for the chaff. The PLT Greenschools! certified students got to see the planted that they had planted in the Winter Break Y-LINC trip earlier this year, thus creating a photo-op for SFA High mascot Stevie.
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| Stephen F. Austin High School mascot Stevie with a tray of plants that the YLINC campers planted in the Winter Break Y-LINC earlier this year. They have obviously been in the good hands of the ETPMC staff! |
We then traveled to Stephen F. Austin Sate University, where one of our long-time Amigos del Bosque partner Andre Saenz is currently in his introductory courses at the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture (ATCOFA). He is pursuing a degree in Wildlife Management, and we are very proud of him.
