14
S moke S ignals
JULY 1, 2015
Natural Resources starts native plants nursery
By Brent Merrill
Smoke Signals staff writer
The Tribe’s Natural Resources
Department is establishing a tra-
ditional plants nursery featuring
camas lilies, Yampa plants and
bare-stemmed biscuit-root among
others.
Natural Resources Department
Manager Michael Wilson said the
need for a Tribal plant materials
program has been building for sev-
eral years.
Wilson said the Tribe would pre-
fer that agencies like the Oregon
Department of Transportation,
among many others that work with
the Tribe, use traditional plants
in many of their habitat resto-
ration and stream
bank stabilization
projects.
“We looked at the
shrubs and vegeta-
tion we would like
to see used to sta-
bilize stream banks
and thought we are
spending money to
acquire these tradi-
tional plants,” said
Wilson.
“Also, we talk to people like
ODOT and other agencies and
we really encourage them to use
Native plants when they are doing
restoration projects and certain
types of ditch work. If they are
building a road and they need to
seed in the hillside and stabilize it,
we encourage them to use Native
plants.”
Wilson said that the Tribe was
often told that the plants it was
requesting be used in projects were
not available or too expensive to
be practical. He said Tribal staff
looked into the idea of establishing
a small nursery of those plants.
Photos by Michelle Alaimo
Harvest brodiaea lily is one of the
plants growing in the traditional
plants nursery at the Tribe’s Natural
Resources Department. At left,
Yampa also is one of the plants
growing in the traditional plants
nursery.
Wilson said the Natural Resourc-
es Department staff worked with
the Tribe’s Land and Culture staff
to arrive at a solution. Wilson said
it was Grand Ronde Tribal mem-
ber Melisa Chandler who had the
initial idea for the Native plants
nursery. Chandler, who has since
moved to New Mexico, worked
for the Culture Department as a
compliance technician and has an
environmental studies degree from
the University of Oregon.
Wilson said bringing the two
Tribal departments together on
the project worked. He said they
then began to work with staff at
CTGR Annual Fish
Distribution
Natural Resources Department
Lower Shop
47010 S.W. Hebo Road
Grand Ronde, Oregon 97347
503-879-2424
GRAND RONDE LIVING and
ENROLLED TRIBAL MEMBERS
Must show current photo I.D.
Thursday, Aug. 13, 2015 - 10 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Friday, Aug. 14, 2015 - 9 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015 - 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
If picking up for others, a signed release form will be required!
No early or late pickup
Fish will NOT be mailed
If you have any questions please call the Natural Resources Department 503-879-2424.
Elders will have a special line established to expediently fill their requests. To ensure this only Elder
orders will be filled using this line. Thank you for understanding and consideration of others.
PORTLAND SATELLITE OFFICE DISTRIBUTION
Fish will not be available to those who do not preregister.
Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2015 at 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Pre-registration is required BEFORE Monday, Aug. 17, 2015 at 5 p.m.
Please contact Lisa Archuleta to preregister for pick up.
503-879-1881
the Institute for Applied Ecology
in Corvallis.
“They do a lot of work growing
plants,” Wilson said of Applied
Ecology. “We met with them and
they were putting in for a grant to
do some big restoration projects and
part of that ended up being to help
us establish a test nursery. We got
a few thousand dollars and some
technical expertise from them. They
helped us a lot with the seed sourc-
es and the bulbs, and they helped
us with labor to do the beds.”
Cultural Protection Program Man-
ager David Harrelson said the grant
the Tribe applied for was a “Plants
for People” grant that was submitted
by Applied Ecology to the Oregon
Watershed Enhancement Board.
Harrelson said the first time the
Tribe worked with Applied Ecol-
ogy resulted in the Tyee Nature
Preserve in Grand Ronde located
just south of the Tribal Housing
Department.
What they came up with for the
native plants nursery was two
60-foot-long raised beds for planting
near the Natural Resource building
and two lower, ground-level beds
down the hill from the building.
Wilson tapped Silviculture and
Fire Protection Technician Jay
Ojua to be the lead on the plants
material project and Ojua said he
and fellow Technician Gabe Clift
worked on the raised beds. Ojua
said they also worked with Peter
Moore and Guy Banner from Ap-
plied Ecology to construct the beds.
“They (Applied Ecology) played
a huge role in giving us the infor-
mation, the knowledge and the
technical skill to get this done,” said
Ojua. “They had built these types
of beds before.”
Moore, from New Zealand, is a
restoration ecologist who works on
a wide range of habitat restoration
projects and Banner is a habitat
restoration technician from Utah
State University.
One of the raised beds is filled
completely with 3,000 camas lil-
ies and the other raised bed has
Yampa, bare-stemmed biscuit-root,
slender-leafed onion, harvest brodi-
aea lily and Tolmie’s cat’s ear lily.
The camas was planted in October
2014 and is now 3 to 4 feet tall and
the other raised bed was planted
in November.
The lower beds, or “cutting
blocks,” are planted with Indian
Plum, Mock Orange, Oceanspray,
Ninebark, Pacific Willow and Red
Osier Dogwood.
Ojua, who has worked for the
Tribe since 2006, said the cutting
blocks are tilled up beds that they
are trying to keep free of weeds. He
said the plan is to grow the trees
and take cuttings off of them.
“You can take a cutting off a
limb and pretty much jam it in the
ground and it will start to put down
roots,” said Ojua. “This has a lot of
potential.”
“It’s been really fun,” said Wilson.
“The guys that put these in are re-
ally into it. We did the construction
part of this last year and the guys
(NRD staff) all planted the bulbs.
We will use these on our projects.”
Wilson said Natural Resources
staff looked at what the goals for
a Tribal plants materials program
should and could be and that they
then prioritized the goals. He said
they looked at what the benefits
could be from a program like this
and they prioritized those as well.
“The long-term goal is having the
potential to have a Grand Ronde
materials plants program,” said
Ojua. “We could be in a position to
sell Native species to other Tribes
and to other entities that need
Native plants that might be hard
to come by. The idea is to keep ev-
erything in the beds for two to three
years and not take anything out so
they can continue to drop seed and
put bulbs down to basically stock
the beds full of bulbs.”
Wilson said the department
wanted to focus on using plants
historically valued by the Tribe
for food, medicine, ceremonies
and weaving and that Natural
Resources hopes to someday create
traditional gathering areas for use
by Tribal members. n
Attention full-
time students
All full-time students must submit verification that they have applied to
a scholarship outside the Tribe before funding will be released for the term/
semester. Verification can include a scholarship award or denial letter, e-mail
verification that an application was submitted, a copy of the application or
the financial aid award letter that lists an outside scholarship. Please contact
Education at 1-800-422-0232, ext. 2275, if you have any questions. n