New efforts to increase native seed availability for burned area restoration in Hawai'i
Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park staff raking seeds in a burned area.
Seeds of native Hawaiian plants are needed to restore areas burned by wildfires; however, there is not currently enough seed available to meet this need. Current and future seed production projects aim to increase the amount and type of seeds available for restoration.
The area burned in Hawai'i continues to increase, in part due to invasive grasses that easily carry fire. These grasses also have the upper hand establishing quickly after fires—they resprout and/or germinate from seed, and then grow quickly. Optimal postfire restoration strategies include establishing natives immediately after fire, before grasses establish.
Hawai'i lacks commercial seed companies, and the USDA Hoʻolehua Plant Materials Center does not currently produce native species. While many agencies have nurseries that grow native plants from seed collected locally, they are limited in scale. For example, appropriate native seeds were unavailable for restoration after the 2023 Lahaina fire.
New multi-agency efforts aim to increase the availability of native, site-specific, genetically appropriate seed. For example, University of Hawai'i, Mānoa is starting seed banks of common species by collecting seed from wild populations, producing genetically diverse stock seed, and developing large-scale production systems. Such projects will help create ecosystems that are resilient to wildfire.