Propagation is Back at S.M.I.!
This year the grow house was given a thorough makeover. The old tables were removed and new gravel was applied to the floor. 14 metal tables with 256 square feet total surface area were constructed for the plug flats. This is enough area for 144 flats. These flats have 144 cells/ flat totaling 20,736 cells or plants.
Seed was acquired from Larner, Hedgerow Farms, and LeBallister’s. Purple Needle grass (Stipa pulchra) was collected from the Petaluma ranch. Seed purchased from Hedgerow Farms was provided with germination data. Germination tests were performed on all other seeds. This information was essential in determining proper sowing rates for each species. We started sowing around September 15th and mature plants will start to be planted around Thanksgiving week. This year we propagated and will plant the follow number of plugs: 3,600 purple needle grass, 1296 nodding needle grass, 1296 Meadow Barley, 1584 California Melic, 1584 Blue Wild Rye, 1296 Alkali Bluegrass, 3600 California Barley, 2106 California Oat Grass, and 3312 Idaho Fescue.
We took a look back at our records and we have been propagating and planting since 2012! A fun fact is since then S.M.I. has planted a total of 112,400 various native grasses throughout the Petaluma property. There have also been a total of 953 oak trees planted on the property that were all started from collected acorns since 2012 as well.
