“Not long ago, it was assumed that once a prairie was plowed up for row crop agriculture, there was no way to get the plant and animal species back again,” said Chris Helzer of The Nature Conservancy. “But now we’ve got the technology and experience to successfully harvest and plant seeds from hundreds of plant species. So in cases where it makes sense to do that kind of restoration, we can re-establish that diverse plant community.”
And that, as we’ve seen, includes a whole bunch of crop wild relatives. Wonder if the folks talking about this in Aurora, NE will give them their due. In fact, I wonder if restoration ecologists in general give any sort of special consideration to CWRs in their work. If you know, tell us.