Millions of future desert plants are drying out inside of paper grocery bags and cardboard boxes in a courtyard-facing office at the Mojave Desert Land Trust.
They’re stacked on metal shelves across the room from four humming refrigerators. (The MLDT calls one of them a “germination chamber.”) Inside the fridges are jars and jars of seeds—some long, some round, some soft, some sharp—all of which could one day bloom under the sun.
This is the MDLT Seed Bank, and it’s becoming an essential piece of preservation and restoration in the fragile desert ecosystem.
More than 2,000 species of native plants are spread across the California desert, which covers around 25% of the state’s geography. Since it started its efforts in 2016, the MDLT Seed Bank has stocked about 940 collections of seeds representing around 250 species. Last year, it added 52 new collections, including its first-ever collection of Indian tobacco.
Patrick G. Emblidge, the seed program manager, calls it an insurance policy against fire and other disasters. The York Fire in 2023 burned more than 90,000 acres of desert, damaging more than 1 million Joshua trees and charring around 500 acres of the MDLT’s own property. Many of the plants on those lands may never return. But having seeds available means species that are wiped out could be quickly repopulated before invasive grasses and weeds take over.
“A lot of times, those weeds are the first things to come back,” said Emblidge, a wildlife ecologist. “So if we’re not there to help restore and get the native plants that we want back in there, then they’ll just be smothered out by those weeds. If something burns, you want to have seed ready to go, and you want to distribute it straight away.”
Locals will have a chance to learn more about the seed bank this month. On Friday, Sept. 13, Emblidge is giving a free talk to discuss the operations and explain the purpose and ethics behind seed-banking.
As the threat of wildfire worsens, the seed bank is receiving more attention—and more funding. Earlier this year, the seed bank was the subject of a feature-length report on CNN as part of the news network’s Call to Earth series on environmental challenges. In May 2023, the seed bank received a $3.19 million grant from the California Wildlife Conservation Board to begin a four-year expansion project. A new seed-focused facility is also being planned.
Other plans for the foreseeable future include creating an inventory for seed use, expanding public education, ensuring tribal engagement in collection methods, and developing protocols that other conservationists can replicate. The seed bank also aims to up its collection with more than 2,000 pounds of seed.
“We’re hoping to have much larger collections that are useful for larger-scale restoration,” Emblidge said.
One goal for the MDLT is to support other agencies that are doing restoration work. It has distributed seeds to other agencies that are working on restoration. It’s currently engaged in a project with the California Botanic Garden and the California Department of Water Resources to grow salt-loving halophytes to be transported to the Salton Sea. It’s also working with The Wildlands Conservancy on a restoration project in Pioneertown.
The seed collections also help protect biodiversity, since some species live in small corners of the desert. “If that burns, the whole species could go extinct if we didn’t have genetic material from the plants stored,” Emblidge said. The seed bank is also available for research purposes, whether that’s examining seeds at a molecular level, or the MDLT’s own germination testing to determine how to best preserve its seeds.
While it appears low-tech, the MDLT’s seed-bank operations are based on detailed and strict conservation protocol. It operates collection outings almost every day to obtain seeds from different areas of the desert. If not on MDLT-owned land, the team obtains requisite approvals, including permits to collect on federal land.
Once on the ground, the seeds are typically shaken or pulled from the plant to avoid any ground contaminants. Teams refrain from collecting more than 10% of the seeds from any species within a population. That’s to ensure the plants continue to grow in their native habitat—and feed native creatures, like kangaroo rats.
“We’re getting enough seeds to represent the population’s genetic diversity. But we’re not taking too much because of annual plants; the next generation in the next season is reliant on the seeds that are produced,” Emblidge said. “We’re really careful about the physical impact we have on the land.”
Once collected, the seeds are dried out in bags or boxes. Then they’re cleaned and sorted—including being painstakingly counted out and weighted by volunteers. They’ll pull out about 200 seeds from a collection, weigh them, and use that number to determine how many are in a jar. From there, the seeds are stored in sauce, baby food and pickle jars that have been donated, and put in the fridge. They’ll stay there for a year until they’re tested to see if they’re still viable. If the seeds aren’t faring well in storage for whatever reason, they may be planted or used elsewhere. But ultimately, the goal is to keep them in storage until they’re needed elsewhere—whenever that day comes.
“There are tons of threats to desert ecosystems,” Emblidge said, “and seeds are the foundational components for restoration.”
“Supporting a Diverse Ecosystem in the Future” will take place at 6 p.m., Friday, Sept. 13, at Mojave Desert Land Trust headquarters, 60124 Twentynine Palms Highway, in Joshua Tree. Admission is free, but reservations are requested. For more information, find the event on Eventbrite, or visit MDLT.org.
This article was edited on Sept. 5 to correct typos and minor errors.
