by Alexis Larsen, April 2026

The 2026 National Native Seed Conference kicked off on February 25th with over 500 attendees from nearly every state, five Canadian provinces, Mexico, Australia, U.K., and Italy. The theme, Seeds for Change: Building Resilient Native Seed Infrastructure, provided a foundation for talks focusing on many aspects of the native seed supply network. Content focused on building and sustaining native seed communities and on-the-ground projects that centered around best practices, innovative methods, and results. Combined with three inspiring and informative plenary speakers, the 2026 NNSC was “a must attend event if you are interested in native plant materials!”. 

What makes this conference truly special is the diversity of expertise represented at each event. We have seed collectors, producers, land managers, restoration practitioners, researchers, and educators all in one space. Each attendee plays a vital role in the native seed supply network and together, we form the living infrastructure that supports restoration and conservation efforts across the country and beyond. Our three plenary speakers highlighted the importance of working together to heal the land.

Author, scientist, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Robin Wall Kimmerer, joined us for a live Q&A after a pre-recorded talk, Restoration and Reciprocity: Healing Relationships with the Natural World. Dr. Kimmerer spoke about our responsibility to give back to the earth, describing restoration as an act of justice to the land and an effort to restore the relationship between the offender and the offended. She talked about needing not only a reference ecosystem to guide restoration but a reference relationship – how plants relate to other plants, animals, and processes – and encouraged attendees to view seeds as living relatives rather than genetic commodities. She emphasized investing in biocultural restoration and working with the knowledge holders in your region.

Pat Reynolds, Heritage Growers, and Joshua Chenoweth, Yurok Tribe, presented on large-scale efforts to produce, procure, and plant native seed for restoration projects. Pat, the General Manager at Heritage, spoke about full suite of work they are able to take on to produce source-identified seed including a production farm, wild collection, cleaning, processing, and storage, consultation, research, and education. He emphasized that, as a non-profit, Heritage Growers and other organizations are integral to solving the native seed supply bottleneck. 

In need of pounds and pounds of seed, Joshua Chenoweth spoke about his efforts in leading the revegetation process for the Klamath Dam removals in northern California including the time and steps necessary to plan, collect, produce, and seed thousands of acres of newly exposed ground. One of the more innovative seeding methods he talked about was seeding by helicopter in areas inaccessible by hand crews – pretty neat! The Klamath Dam Revegetation Project demonstrates how large-scale revegetation with source-identified seed can happen and emphasizes the need for regional native seed partnerships. 

The National Native Seed Conference provides an opportunity to reflect on the power of seeds and the impact they have on conservation efforts. Small but mighty, they hold the potential renewal, resilience, and transformation. In many ways the conference is the same – a place where ideas are planted, partnerships grow, and lasting change takes root. Recordings of the 2026 conference will be available on IAE’s YouTube channel in May but until then, check out content from past conferences.

Finally, we are excited to announce that the next in-person conference, and the 10th overall National Native Seed Conference, will be held in Portland, Oregon on March 1-4, 2027! We are so excited to bring this conference to the Pacific Northwest for the first time ever and build our connections in this region and beyond. We are currently accepting abstracts for symposia and workshops and expect to open submissions for individual and poster sessions in the coming weeks. Stay tuned this spring and summer for more details regarding workshops, field trips, registration, and sponsorship opportunities.