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Plant Materials Program

by Patrick Broyles, Soil Conservationist
Manhattan Plant Materials Center
Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)
Manhattan, Kansas

“The use of improved conservation plants is integral to protecting America’s working lands. The Plant Materials Program (PMP) offers a 70-year track record of finding plant solutions to help respond to our most critical natural resource challenges,” related Bruce Knight, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

The PMP, which is part of the NRCS, shares the agency's rich 70-year history. Since the 1930s, the PMP has developed plant solutions for restoring the country's most critical resource concerns. The mission of the PMP is to develop, test, and transfer effective state-of-the-art plant science technology to meet customer and resource needs. The conservation plants and plant technology developed by the program form the foundation for most of the NRCS’s vegetative conservation practices today. Products and services from the program are critical to the NRCS mission.

The Manhattan Plant Materials Center (PMC) is one of the 26 plant materials centers in the United States and its territories. Since 1936, the Manhattan PMC on its 169 acres has selected plants and developed new technologies for America’s heartland, including the area’s remaining native grasslands and riparian and wetland habitats. Over 30 improved conservation plants, including varieties of Illinois bundleflower, common reed, switchgrass, bur oak, prairie coneflower and little bluestem have been released. The Manhattan PMC has provided plant materials and technologies for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) seeding enhancements, disturbed site reclamation, planting and harvesting native plants, and restoring historical prairie.

The PMC cooperates with public, private, commercial and tribal partners, and land managers to apply new conservation methods using plants. The PMC collects, selects and releases grasses, legumes, wildflowers, trees and shrubs, as a natural way to address conservation issues and re-establish ecosystem function. The PMP provides plant materials and new applied technologies for national initiatives that include: the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP), Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), and the Grassland Reserve Program (GRP). The PMP offers plant solutions to battle invasive species, heal lands damaged by natural disasters, reduce the effects of drought, promote air and water quality, and produce alternative energy. PMP plant releases and technology are incorporated in the NRCS Field Office Technical Guide (FOTG) and become standards for many conservation practices implemented on public and private lands. The Manhattan PMC has identified several resource issues to address:

  • Develop plants used for windbreaks
  • Utilize plants, especially native, for improved wildlife habitat
  • Develop plants and technology to improve grazing on range, pasture, and forest lands
  • Develop plants and techniques for stabilizing highly erosive sites
  • Improve water quality by minimizing inland shoreline erosion using plants and advanced techniques
  • Assist American Indian tribes with projects to protect and produce culturally significant plants

The Manhattan PMC serves a diverse region of the heartland including Kansas, Nebraska, northern Oklahoma, and eastern Colorado. This area of the country was originally native grasslands dissected by a number of major streams. Wooded riparian areas follow streams and extend up the slopes in the east where precipitation is sufficient to support a mixed hardwood community. Annual amounts of precipitation can vary from 42 inches in parts of Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas to 14 inches in western Kansas and Nebraska. Temperatures fluctuate widely and are often accompanied by high winds and long periods without effective precipitation. Soil types also vary widely from the clays of northeastern Oklahoma to the coarse sandy soils found in the Nebraska sand hills. The extremes of climate and soil offer a challenging and varied environment in which conservation plants must survive and flourish to be effective. Today, this region’s land use is largely devoted to agriculture. The production of food and fiber is the leading industry in the heartland.

For additional information concerning the Plant Materials Program, visit the Manhattan PMC website at; http://plant-materials.nrcs.usda.gov/kspmc/.

For more information about NRCS programs, visit the Kansas NRCS Web site at www.ks.nrcs.usda.gov.

This article is also available in Microsoft Word format.

Plant Materials Program (DOC; 43 KB)

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Last Modified: 09/04/2008