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Monarch Recovery from a Milkweed’s Point of View

Milkweed Seed Supply Chains for Monarch Habitat Restoration

PAUL MIROCHA

by Gary Paul Nabhan and Ina Warren, www.makewayformonarchs.org with Orley “Chip” Taylor, www.monarchwatch.org

with contributions from interviews with John Pleasants, Herb Knudsen, George Ball, Jr., Blake Curtis, Gail Haggard, Jim Verrier, Francesca

Claverie, Peggy Olwell, Kay Havens, Laura Lopez-Hoffman, Laura Jackson, Brianna Borders, John Anderson, Victor Schaff, Bonnie Harper-Lore,

Eric Lee-Mader, Mace Vaughn, David Dreeson, Steve Buckley, Mark Fishbein, George Cates, Tao Fong, and LeRoy Brady

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Summary and Statement of the ProblemThe largest habitat recovery initiative in American history is needed to plant new and enhance existing populations of milkweeds and other native wildflowers for the recovery of monarch butterflies. This report offers insights—particularly for departments of transportation and other landscape managers—on how best to build collaborations to manage the milkweed seed supply chain to recover monarchs as well as crop pollinators in North America over the next decade. It highlights how governmental agencies, for-profit and non-profit organizations may work together to plant a billion new milkweeds and better manage roadside stands in monarch breeding grounds to reverse dramatic declines in monarchs and native bees. Most of the recommendations here are derived from interviews with seed collectors, seed producers, nurserymen, landscape architects, right-of-way managers and habitat restorationists. This report underscores the need for co-management of the entire “milkweed seed supply chain” in order to avoid bottlenecks and wasteful efforts so that conservation targets can be reached in a cost-effective manner. We are optimistic that such collabora-tive efforts can restore healthy relationships between the species of concern and among the people who can positively impact their well-being.

Introduction and JustificationIn February of 2014, the elected leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada agreed to engage in an effort toward monarch recovery that may become the largest habitat restoration effort in the history of North Amer-ica. Ironically, it will focus not just on a single imperiled species—the iconic monarch butterfly—but its relationships with milkweeds and other native plants required for its survival. The restoration and careful management of the “milkweed communities” will also benefit imperiled native bees and the domestic honeybee that are essential for crop production and food security. The stated target of this tri-national initiative will be to plant upwards of a billion milkweed plants in the spring and summer breeding grounds of monarchs to recover migratory butterfly populations that overwinter in Mexico so that they will consistently cover 4–6 hectares (ha) of forested habitat. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has provisionally announced this target after months of data accumulation, modeling, mapping and expert review facilitated by the Monarch Conservation Science Partnership coor-dinated by the U.S. Geological Survey. The justification for this estimate comes from the best currently-available science, briefly outlined below. According to several recent journal articles and government reports, the loss of several milkweed species from wild, semi-managed and cultivated landscapes in North America may be the major factor contributing to steep declines of monarch butterflies over the last 15 years. These milkweed declines impact the viability of monarch butterfly populations because monarch larvae require milkweed host plants to complete their life cycle. The first study to assess the magnitude of this dilemma, authored by John Pleasants and Karen Oberhauser, was published in Insect Conservation and Diversity in 2012. It suggested that roughly a million milkweed stems or plants may have been lost from monarch summer breeding areas. Next, a 2014 study using a methodology different from that of Pleas-ants was published in the Journal of Animal Ecology by Tyler Flockhart and colleagues at the University of Guelph. It projected that the number of

Floral visitors to milkweeds include more than just monarchs.

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milkweed plants in the U.S. Corn Belt, where most monarchs breed, has fallen 20% over the past few decades. According to the senior author of that study, their model projected that about 1.5 billion milkweed plants have been lost from monarch summer breeding areas over the last twelve to fifteen years. More recently, at the 2015 Trilateral Committee meetings, Canadian, U.S. and Mexican wildlife managers worked up recommendations based on work recently accomplished by Monarch Conservation Science Partner-ship. Their analyses suggests that the current number of milkweed stems in summer breeding grounds may be between 1.14 and 1.33 billion, and that between 1.25 to 1.5 billion additional stems may be needed to achieve an increase in monarchs sufficient to cover 6 hectares in their Mexican overwintering grounds (Thogmartin unpublished data). While this third

BOTH ILLUSTRATIONS BY PAUL MIROCHA

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The Bureau of Land Management has been developing native plant materials since 2001 when Congress directed it to establish a program to ensure an adequate supply of seed for restoration and rehabilitation after wildfire and other disturbances. To develop a crop from wild collected seed can take 10–20 years, depending upon the species. However, BLM and its partners in the National Seed Strategy are finding means to shorten that amount of time needed to employ many different species required for habitat res-toration efforts. BLM’s Plant Conservation Program Lead, Peggy Olwell, reminds us that “The native plant materials process begins with native seed collection. Seeds of Success (SOS) is the national seed collecting program that has made over 16,000 native seed collections from across the U.S. since 2001.”

To date, SOS collectors have made more than 70 collec-tions of 20 milkweed species. SOS is further ramping up collections of milkweed (Asclepias) species for the 2015 col-lection season. The training workshops which all collectors go through have recently emphasized increasing not only the number of collections of Asclepias but also increasing the diversity of Asclepias species. Additionally, collection meth-ods for milkweeds are taught and the objectives of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign are underscored in order to assist SOS collectors in making quality collections. By 2015, there were approximately 45 SOS collecting teams working across the U.S. Multiple teams are collect-ing Asclepias in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Utah, all states with high diversity of milkweed species (Nabhan, Buckley and Dial 2015.) In addition the Safford, Arizona BLM Office is working with the Xerces Society, Gila Watershed Partnership, and Watershed Management Group on an A. subulata increase project. Pollinator forbs are another important focus for nectar; the BLM Safford Office is working on a two-acre public pollinator garden/monarch waystation and outdoor classroom in addition to six acres of pollinator increase fields that will ultimately serve as a seed source for polli-nator habitat restoration and training done by Borderlands Restoration and Make Way for Monarchs. The BLM Plant Conservation Program, including Seeds of Success, is seeing an increase in requests for wild collected seeds of plants such as milkweeds to serve as the foundation material for seed increase projects for monarch habitat plant-ings. A portion of the SOS collection is available for research and is distributed through the Agricultural Research Service’s Western Regional Plant Introduction Station, which has noted that Asclepias is the most requested genus in 2015. To better meet the growing demand for milkweeds, support and funding is needed to implement the recently developed National Seed Strategy, a collaborative effort by the Plant Conservation Alliance of 12 federal agencies and more than 300 non-federal partners. The National Seed Strategy will guide the development of genetically appro-priate seed and plant materials for restoration of iconic American landscapes, including those that support milk-weed species and Monarch Butterflies.

estimate is still subject to change and soon to be published with its full justification, it independently corroborates the same order of magnitude of milkweed plantings suggested by the other studies. Upwards of 1 billion or more new milkweed stems and better management of natural stands may be required for monarch recovery on the scale agreed to by the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Let us be clear that meeting such a goal will not simply support a sin-gle species that has been in decline—monarch butterflies—but benefit over 100 species of native bees as well. Many of those bees are important pollina-tors of field, orchard and pasture crops in North America. Thus, the habitats to be restored will be planted not only with milkweeds, but also with native wildflowers and grasses that benefit all matter of butterflies and bees, most of which are economically-important pollinators of agricultural crops.

Protecting and Better Managing Existing Milkweed Populations Although new plantings of milkweeds will be needed for monarch recov-ery, it is nevertheless more cost effective to enhance existing populations than to start from scratch. The following actions may be needed:1. locate, further protect and better manage existing milkweeds on public

lands (parks, forests, greenbelts, refuges and sanctuaries) managed by federal, state, county, township and city agencies and departments;

Monarch butterfly larva on A. latifolia on state highway sides in West Texas.

SEEDS OF SUCCESS AND THE NATIONAL SEED STRATEGY

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In addition, investment in programs such as BLM’s Plant Conservation Program is necessary to coordinate and build capacity within the federal government sector. This pro-gram works with a variety of partners, including Federal, tribal, state and local governments, non-profits, and pri-vate sector to accomplish the science based steps of the native plant materials development process. The steps include native seed collection, evaluation and develop-ment, field establishment, seed production, seed storage, and the restoration of native plant communities. The most difficult step in the process is seed production. Departments of Transportation can partner with local Plant Conservation Alliance cooperators, such as botanical gardens, university researchers, NGOs, seed growers or local governments to forecast the species they are interested in planting. Additionally, the DOTs should be able to go to private sector industry and request local native milkweed be grown on contract. Beyond getting the materials for use along roadsides, they will need to have a weed management plan that is complementary to using natives and ensures that the timing of herbicide application and/or mowing does not kill the native milkweeds, leaving nothing for the pollinators. There are several challenges and barriers to ramping up the production of multiple species of milkweeds. As noted earlier, the most difficult step in the development of a crop from wildland seed is getting a farmer to grow the seed. There is a very wide gap we need to narrow between the Federal land-managing agencies, such as BLM, DOD, FS, NPS or FWS, that need native seed and the farmers that could produce it. We need a program that facilitates coop-eration between the federal agencies that need seed and the local farmers who grow seed. It would alleviate the biggest challenge to increased milkweed seed production. The Plant Conservation Alliance Non-Federal Coopera-tor Committee noted that there is limited funding going to native plant materials development programs in the federal, non-federal and private sectors. That remains one of the largest challenges to ramping up multiple species of milkweeds. Research needs to be funded and done by either government, university or non-profit research cen-ters on how to make these native species successful crops before giving the seed to the private sector industry for increasing it and making it commercially available.

2. slow the conversion of CRP lands (with milkweeds on them) to row crops for ethanol, and plant additional milkweeds into as much of the extant CRP lands remaining in perennial cover;

3. reschedule the mowing of existing milkweeds stands along highways to allow milkweeds to seed, plant milkweeds in denuded areas and reduce the area mowed more than ten feet in from highway pavement;

4. add milkweeds to existing pollinator gardens and restored prairies around schools, churches, nature centers and cemeteries in exurban areas;

5. reduce herbicide impacts and plant non-invasive milkweeds in conser-vation filter strips and along hedgerows or windbreaks that are already on agricultural lands;

6. safeguard or even augment milkweed stands in privately protected areas such as Nature Conservancy preserves and the natural habitats on university and corporate campuses.

Showy milkweed, Asclepias speciosa. BLM WY020, SEEDS OF SUCCESS

Showy milkweed, Asclepias speciosa. PETER GORDON & DARNISHA COVERSON. BLM WY020, SEEDS OF SUCCESS

Peggy Olwell, Bureau of Land Management, Plant Conservation Program Lead, Seeds of Success

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George Ball has been involved in the seed industry in one manner or another since he was 14; his vision, seasoned opinions and projections carry weight with many in the world of horticulture. He is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of W. Atlee Burpee & Co. and Chairman of The Burpee Foundation. In addition, he has served as chair of the American Horticultural Society. Through a collaboration with Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell, and Secretary of Agriculture, Thomas Vilsack, Ball and his company produced and donated one mil-lion packets of a seed mix that was specially formulated by selecting varieties that will attract bees and monarch butterflies to be distributed by the National Park Service to home and school gardens. The project is in direct sup-port of and promotes President Obama’s National Pollinator Initiative. Ball, Jewell and Vilsack encourage recipients to “share and register your garden and become part of the 2015 one million strong bee and butterfly brigade.” Burpee’s interest in promoting seed mixes with several milkweed species and other native wildflowers did not end with the “Burpee Bee Garden/Butterflies Welcome” seed mix; they are currently in the process developing more regionalized butterfly garden mixes that include at least two milkweed species appropriate for each landscape. George Ball has predicted that “the task of ramping up seed production for monarch and pollinator recovery is a humongous one. It’s not just about gaining access to a suf-ficient volume of seeds. We must also be evaluating mixes for their worthiness in meeting the needs of butterflies and bees. There’s no single magic quality that you select for in such mixes. It’s not as simple as evaluating and selecting traits in a single vegetable variety that confer disease resis-tance. You need to select for multiple traits and qualities not only among milkweeds, but for the other wildflowers in the mix, whether they be buddlejas, echinaceas or zinnias. We need to focus on the milkweeds and other wildflowers that truly attract pollinators.”

Building Capacity for Seed Production and Habitat RestorationTo ramp up one of the largest habitat restoration efforts in history over the next decade, there needs to be a coordinated effort in building capacity and financial support for collecting, propagating, transplanting and main-taining enough milkweeds and other wildflowers in mixes to restore the particular habitats essential for monarch breeding. If 10,000s to 100,000s of milkweeds need to be planted in each state where the summer breeding of monarchs occur, a strong collaboration needs to be fostered among government seed collection programs like Seeds of Success, foundation seed increase and selection programs like the USDA NRCS Plant Materials Centers, private and non-profit seed companies, nurseries and wildlife habitat restoration organizations. Whether these organizations work along rights-of-way with willing departments of transportation, railroad, electrical transmission and pipe line managers, on private farms and ranches, with willing food producers, or on national forests and grasslands with federal agencies, we will need “all hands on deck.” The capacity we build must not stop with planting out more milkweeds, but must extend to diligently protecting existing stands and dynamically maintaining them into perpetuity.

Designing and Managing the Milkweed Seed Supply ChainTo achieve such goals, we will need to solve problems along each step in the “milkweed seed supply chain”: 1. collecting seed of ecotypes through BLM Seeds of Success projects

appropriate for outplanting to each “seed transfer zone” found in the monarch breeding grounds; while at least twelve of the milkweed spe-cies attractive to monarchs are easily propagated, two of those species are most commonly found on or adjacent to farmlands in the North Central and South Central regions;

2. propagating, evaluating, germinating and selecting from those collec-tions source-identified seeds for on-farm production at NRCS Plant Materials Centers to provide the diverse seedstock needed by nurseries or seed companies;

3. identifying target areas of suitable, accessible habitat in the summer breeding grounds in the North Central (Corn Belt) and South Central states where most monarchs migrating to Mexico begin their lives;

4. collaborating with private and public land managers who wish to implement restoration of wildlife habitat for monarchs and other pollinators;

5. matching of the most ecologically-appropriate provenance or ecotype of seed to the site’s “seed transfer zone;”

6. providing recommendations for seed drilling, broadcasting and “plug” transplanting to establish anywhere from twenty to sixty milkweeds per acre amidst a mix of native wildflowers for nectar forage and native perennial grasses for cover;

7. carefully selecting sites and preparing their soils for planting, as well as appropriately timing the seeding or plug transplanting of multiple species in a mix, followed by extended periods of watering and weed management at the site;

RAMPING UP MILKWEED SEED PRODUCTION IS A HUMONGOUS TASK: W. ATLEE BURPEE & CO

George Ball, Jr., CEO of W. Atlee Burpee & Co.

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8. garnering funding for subsequent management of well-timed mowing, reduction or suspension of herbicides, tillage for control of herbicide- tolerant weeds, etc., so as not to diminish the planted populations;

9. training for CRP, highway, railroad and transmission line maintenance crews to ensure that established populations are maintained and pro-liferate; and

10. acquiring adequate funds for multi-year contracts in order to pay private companies to produce quality milkweed seeds and regionally-appro-priate mixes for use by agencies, private land owners and non-profit reserve managers.

To manage this entire supply chain in a manner that achieves the needed results within a decade’s time, there must be considerable coordination of the people involved in all links along this chain. It solves no problem if seed producers ramp up the production and marketing of milkweeds in Iowa, but there are no immediate buyers who have gained access to suitable sites in which to sow the seeds or transplant the plugs. Likewise, it hardly helps the manager of a protected area if more seeds are marketed, but they are not of the particular species and ecotype required in his or her “seed transfer zone” or eco-region. Coordination across the links, both spatially and temporally, will be critical to avoiding bottlenecks that limit our suc-cess. Our interviews with industry representatives underscore the critical importance of agencies understanding the lead times and seed production costs—as much $12,000 per acre—necessary to produce source-identified pure live seeds of additional ecotypes or species.

Showy milkweed, Asclepias speciosa. PETER GORDON & DARNISHA COVERSON. BLM WY020, SEEDS OF SUCCESS

This view of a roadside within a U.S. Fish and Wildlife-managed prairie shows how mowing can eliminate milkweeds from strips next to roadsides, so that they only have a chance to survive between the mowed area and plowed edges of corn or soy fields bordering the refuge. GARY NABHAN

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Volume of Milkweed Seed and Mixes Needed for One State’s RestorationOf the 20 most widely-propagated milkweed species, the number of bulk seeds per pound ranges from 182,000 down to 20,000 (Borders and Lee-Mader 2014). There are about 4000 seeds in an ounce of pure live seed for an easily propagated species like Asclepias syriaca, the common milkweed. In most seed mixes being sold on the market that are designed for wild hab-itat restoration, the percent of milkweed seeds in the entire seed mix ranges from 0.04–2.6% by seed count, and 0.45–6.2% by seed weight. (In Xerces Society-sponsored habitat restorations, and depending upon the species and

Current Availability of Milkweed Seeds and Plantable SeedlingsUsing data compiled by Monarch Watch, the Xerces Society and ourselves, there are currently at least 90 for-profit and non-profit organizations in the U.S. that offer at least seeds of 23 species of the 76 milkweed species found in the lower 48 states of the U.S. In addition, transplantable plugs of 20 species and their ecotypes from 9 ecoregional “seed transfer zones” are also available. However, few of these organizations offer bulk wholesale quantities of pure live seeds of many species, and the same is true with transplantable “plugs” grown for the purposes of transplanting into restoration sites. Borders and Lee-Mader (2014) of the Xerces Society tracked the avail-ability of seeds of 19 milkweed species. Only 7 species are sold in bulk quantities of a pound or more; 12 species are sold by the ounce; and at least 6 more species were in first-phase grow-out for increase. Currently, at least 14 species are sold in small seed packets holding less than an ounce of seeds, with some packets costing as much as $3.00 per 10 seeds.

Species Common name Avg seed price/lb Lowseed price/lb HighSeed price/lb WholesalePlug prices Presence in mixes

Data from websites and telephone interviews by Nabhan, summer of 2015

A. fascicularis Narrow leaf --- --- --- --- 1

A. incarnata Swamp $202 $120 $300 $1.00 – $1.50 2

A. purpurascens Purple $1280 $1200 $1360 $1.50 – $1.75 -

A. speciosa Showy $212 $40 $450 $1.70 3

A. sullivantii Prairie $848 $848 $848 $1.50 – 1.75 -

A. syriaca Common $162 $100 $300 $1.16 – 1.50 10

A. tuberosa Butterfly weed $503 $120 $640 $1.05 – 1.50 10

A. verticillata Whorled $750 $720 $780 $1.12 – 1.70 1

A. viridiflora Short green $1504 $1504 $1504 $1.75 – 2.10 --

A. viridis Spider --- --- --- $1.25 – 1.53 --

ASCLEPIAS SPECIES AVAILABLE IN U.S. SEED AND NURSERY TRADE, 2015

David Dreesen of the USDA NRCS Plant Materials Center in Los Lunas showing in-the-ground seed production of A. latifolia and A. speciosa milkweeds after three years.

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Curtis & Curtis Seed was founded in Clovis, New Mexico in 1989. Blake Curtis, its co-founder, has been involved in both native seed production and the development of mixes for reclamation, revegetation and wildlife habitat recovery for more than a quarter century. In recent years, the company has seen its international market—particularly in Mexico—double its demand for seed.

“Initially,” explained Blake, “we were responding to the need for native grasses to be used in the revegetation of retired farmlands, the creation of soil banks, windbreaks and stabilized mine spoils. Now our markets are signifi-cantly diverse, yet we still help revegetate less productive acreage that is in transition from row crops to other uses.” “Over the last 25 years, we’ve seen an increasing focus on recovery of habitats for wildlife and for whole ecosys-tem function. These may benefit pollinators, though few of our projects historically focused on butterflies or bees. And yet, we have always helped to revegetate highway rights-of-way in ways that bring public awareness to wildflowers and their pollinators, even if it is done merely in the context of “roadside beautification.” Blake believes that there are real challenges in making the co-management of milkweed seed supply chains func-tion in ways that benefit all players: “The brutal truth is that there has to be a tangible eco-nomic benefit from raising the seeds of milkweeds and other pollinator nectar forages to justify a company’s invest-ment in ramping up production. It must be recognized from the very beginning that it takes as much as 18 months to collect seeds and establish seed production plots of a new species or ecotype. Then it may take 12 months more to harvest the first seed crop so that we can get traction on cleaning and distributing it to meet demand. So we are accumulating expenses over two or three years before we get paid for the first new seed that we distribute. With natives, it often takes three to four years of crops for us to break even and to get compensated for all of our expenses over the previous five years.” Blake Curtis then turned his attention to the specific challenges associated with species of Asclepias: “With milkweeds in particular, we will need to do a lot of new field collections from different seed transfer zones to obtain plant materials suited to a range of sites. There is currently a lack of technical information available to ade-quately guide us in the germination, field production, and harvesting of each species. We also need to address the toxicity issues associated with certain milkweed species, especially if we are to market and distribute them in land-scapes where there is livestock production.” Blake’s advice to both the NRCS and to departments of transportation is this: “Help us deal with the bottlenecks—the acquisition of foundation seeds, the determination of germination levels that need to be known for the labelling of pure live seed, the appropriate scales of technology for harvesting and cleaning, and the determination of seeding rates for seed drilling and broadcasting.”

INVESTING IN THE ENTIRE SEED SUPPLY CHAIN: CURTIS & CURTIS SEED

Species Common name Avg seed price/lb Lowseed price/lb HighSeed price/lb WholesalePlug prices Presence in mixes

the local conditions, milkweeds comprise from 1% to 14% of seed mixes as measured by pure live seed weight.) These seed mixes are typically drilled in at 10 pounds per acre or broadcast (hand sown) at 10 to 20 pounds per acre, depending upon environmental conditions and cost constraints. If, for example, we assume that we want milkweed seeds to be 3% of the seed weight in a seed mix—which is in the middle range—that is about one half ounce of milkweed seed per pound of mix, or five ounces of milk-weed seeds for a broadcast or drilling of a 10 pound seed mix spread over an acre. In essence, we would be hand-sowing or drilling 20,000 seeds of milkweeds, hoping to initially establish as many as 100 new plants per acre, with 40–60 of them surviving to flower in the second year. However, some restorationists find five ounces of milkweed seeds in a mix sufficient for seed drilling on 40 acres. The point here is that establish-ing milkweeds in wildlands vegetation remains more art than science; the amount of seed applied by one restoration ecologist versus another may vary fifty-fold, depending upon the soils, rainfall, species and equipment with which they are working. In line with John Pleasants’ projection that we need to establish a mini-mum of 27,500 milkweeds back into the Iowa landscape at a minimum of 20 stems per acre, this state-level goal might be accomplished with 1408 acres of restored habitat in that state. Pollinator seed mixes that include milkweeds cost $880 to $1590 per acre if designed for broadcasting at 20 lbs to the acre, but cost as little as $440 per acre if drilled at 10 pounds to the acre. For broadcasting 20 pounds of mix per acre for 1408 acres would cur-rently cost over $1.2 million dollars, or with almost $39,000 to include the milkweed seeds in the mix. For drilling 10 lbs per acre, the seed mix would currently cost about $620,000, with almost $20,000 invested in the milkweed seed in the mix. Keep in mind that these estimates are for seed only, and not for the labor, fuel and equipment for site preparation and maintenance over time. They are also fitting for only the cheapest species—the common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and the swamp milkweed (A. incarnata) seeds—accord-ing to 2015 market prices.

Status of Efforts to Ramp Up Milkweed Seed ProductionIf seed production or managed harvesting of these two species by the most cost-efficient companies can be increased and they are given multi-year contracts for doing so, it is possible the retail cost for seed mixes could be reduced to $150/lb, and bulk seed purchased on a consistent basis could be produced by large scale operations for as low as $75/lb wholesale. There are already several sources with sufficient seeds of common and swamp milkweed in hand that could hypothetically allow habitat resto-ration to ramp up to the million acre level (7800 lbs) within a matter of two to three years. However, this assumes that the seed now available could ideally be planted back into suitable sites within the seed transfer zones from which it came, so that it would not be broadly distributed to other zones as well. This option would mandate that ecotypes and species from additional seed transfer zones would need to be collected, brought into seed production and then matched with sites within their own zones, a process that might take three or more years to complete.

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An Interview with Herb Knudsen From Monarch Flyway

Monarch Flyway is a milkweed seed, seed oil and fiber company begun by Herb Knudsen. Knudsen was once Vice-President for New Ventures at Standard Oil of Ohio, and acquired the Milkweed Project he began there. He first named the spin-off the Natural Fibers Corporation, which led to the marketing of hypoallergenic sleeping products from the soft, silky fibers of milkweed floss by the Ogallala Comfort Company in 1988. His next enterprise was Milkweed Balm, which now sells a topical pain reliever made from milkweed seed oil. Monarch Flyway sells viable milkweed seeds for land reclamation, highway beautification, butterfly farming and pollinator gardens. Herb has come upon a means of meeting the growing market for milkweed seeds by locating then managing sites for sustainable harvests of milkweed seeds. Here are Herb’s responses to our queries.

Q How long have you been propagating milkweeds (note how many species) and what uses prompted you to begin your efforts and intensify production?A We work with A. syriaca (common milkweed) and A. speciosa (showy milkweed). We focus on passive milkweed propagation. By protecting native milkweed stands, we create a loosely connected “Flyway” for monarchs to use as their breeding grounds. When communities are paid for pods, they are vigilant about protecting their milkweed patches. As the collection progresses, many seeds fall out of the bags and reseed themselves from where they are picked. Long standing collections allow monarchs and people to thrive. As the years pass, collections are able to grow more and more over time. Our growth has been fueled by developing products based on milkweed raw materials. Our first business was www.ogallalacomfortcompany.com a low volume, high value product line in luxury bedding that uses the soft, warm clusters that float the milkweed seeds in the air. We have been storing and experimenting with milkweed seed from the beginning of the business. Since we were unable to sell all the seed we pro-duced, we started pressing the seed for oil. We discovered that the seed oil is an excellent pain reliever and started creating Milkweed Balm, a topical pain relieving cream. www.milkweedbalm.com. Milkweed seed for monarch habitat has been our smallest product offer-ing. Until recently, people have been unwilling to purchase or plant milkweed seed. In order to maintain a healthy “Flyway”, more milkweed products need to be developed to keep people motivated to protect the native milkweed stands in their communities.

Q How do you sense the recent public interest in monarch declines is changing demand for milkweeds? A We’ve sold more milkweed seed this year (2015) than we have in the past 28 years combined. We are the largest milkweed seed supplier in the world and have the ability to increase production relatively quickly. Our ability to supply has always been held back by lack of demand. Since milkweed is a perennial, we expect the seed market to be relatively short-lived.

Q What would help producers better meet growing demand for milkweeds so that supply and demand don’t get out of synch?A Our ability to supply seed has always been held back by lack of demand.

Q What recommendations do you have for departments of transportation that are considering either direct seeding or transplanting of plugs to highway rights of way? A Protect milkweed you currently have on your roadsides. A large milkweed stand in the ditch takes 5 to 10 years of growth. Direct seeding is quick, easy and low cost, with plants appearing in a couple of years after seeding. Plugs are labor, equipment and facilities intensive, making cost higher than bulk seeding, but plants produced are visible earlier than direct seeding.

Q What do you foresee as challenges, barriers and opportunities for ramping up the production of multiple species of milkweeds in time to effectively advance monarch recovery?A The opportunity—milkweed pods of all wild species are accessible all over the U.S. The challenges—organize wild milkweed pod collections in diverse locations. Barriers: Lack of sustainable markets for milkweed raw materials.

Wild harvest of milkweed pods from stands managed by Monarch Flyway and its collaborators.

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Determining Which Regions and Sites Should Be Targeted for PlantingsWhat regions need the most investment? New plantings in the summer breeding grounds in the North Central (Corn Belt) region and the spring breeding grounds in the South Central regions will be most critical for recovering monarchs migrating to Mexico. The Monarch Conservation Sci-ence Partnership facilitated by the USGS Powell Group has determined which counties will be the highest priorities for new plantings, and will soon release maps and projections of milkweed numbers needed to be planted in each of those counties. In 1980 there were about 26 million acres of common milkweed habitat in the North Central region. USDA data from 2013 suggest that herbi-cide-tolerant crop production that used glyphosates as herbicides covered as much as 155 million acres of farmlands in the United States, mostly in the Midwest where much of the common milkweed in monarch breeding areas occurs. From 1999 to 2009, the declining number of fields with milk-weed, and the reduced density where it was found, translated to a startling 96.5% decline in Iowa and considerable declines in other North Central states’ croplands (Hartzler 2010; Pleasants and Oberhauer 2013). Obviously, not all of the North Central landscapes adjacent to row crops are now devoid of milkweeds, but Monarch Watch projections suggest that we will need to be planting and establishing 5 to 10 million milkweeds a year just to keep up with current annual habitat losses that have not yet been curbed. Monarch Watch projects that the continuing annual loss of monarch habitat is between 0.5 and 1.5 million acres per year including 1) conversion of CRP lands to croplands, and 2) exurban development converting croplands to housing developments, but not from other losses such as milkweed mortality due to herbicides, competition by herbicide- resistant weeds or extended drought.

Helping Departments of Transportation Access Sufficient Seed Supplies: Current Commercial AvailabilityState departments of transportation (DOTs) can play key roles in planting north-south corridors with milkweeds for migratory monarchs, although it is important to recognize that a functional butterfly corridor must be much wider than the width of a single highway right-of-way. It has been proposed that milkweeds be planted along the Interstate 55 right-of-way from Memphis or New Orleans to St. Louis and Chicago, and along the Interstate 35 right-of-way from Laredo to Duluth. To advance such large scale highway beautification and habitat restoration goals, how much seed resources would be needed, not only of milkweeds but of grasses and other nectar producing forbs? Where would they be sourced from? First, let’s look at the current commercial availability of seeds of milkweeds: 1. Ten to twelve large-scale commercial native seed companies already

grow or wild-harvest sizable quantities of milkweed seeds. This robust industry has decades of experience growing milkweeds and other forbs for DOTs, CRP clients and other Farm Bill conservation program participants.

2. An initial inquiry of just seven of these native seed companies in 2014–2015 revealed the following annual milkweed seed harvest volumes

Plants of the Southwest was engaged in milkweed seed col-lection, propagation, education and sales long before there was a monarch butterfly crisis. Its owner-manager, Gail Hag-gard, has been propagating milkweeds for nearly 40 years. Nevertheless, she readily pitched in to help Project Milkweed as soon as she was invited by the Xerces Society to do so. She explains why: “Public interest is much greater now than ever before, thanks to the Xerces Society and its effective contacts with the media. The story has been widely discussed in maga-zines, on the radio, in schools and colleges.” Currently, Plants of the Southwest tries to keep in stock four milkweed species, and avoids marketing another native that tends to be invasive and more toxic to livestock than the others in its region. Gail has donated milkweeds to small community projects, but reminds agencies that “it would help to be paid instead of having to donate plants” at a considerable cost to her operation. She feels she could ramp up even more “if we were given enough time to do what is requested, and had assurance of purchase and full payment.” For highway rights-of-way habitats, Haggard believes that “seeding [is] always better than transplanting plugs. Planting should be done further from the roadside than the width of the mow strip.” Unfortunately, she adds, “our roadside milkweeds are still being mowed down before their seeds are ripe for dispersal.”

Gail Haggard, owner-manager of Plants of the Southwest, has been propagating milkweeds outside of Santa Fe for nearly four decades.

CHANGING THE WAY WE MOW AND MAKE CONTRACTS: PLANTS OF THE SOUTHWEST

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Borderlands Restoration does its native milkweed seed col-lection, propagation and outplanting in restored habitats through a unique L3C structure that is akin to a hybrid for-profit/non-profit organization. Its restoration implementation program and its nursery were envisioned by Dr. H. Ron Pulliam, founding director of the National Biological Service of the USGS and past president of the Ecological Society of America. Pulliam immediately hired Francesca Claverie to manage the BR Nursery, drawing upon her experience in propagating native plants with the University of California Davis/Arboretum, and with Native Seeds/SEARCH. The nurs-ery has become part of a larger effort, the Madrean Archi-pelago Plant Propagation Center which has National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management support through collaborative agreements. The BR Nursery has been propa-gating milkweeds for 2.5 years. Specializing in native plants of the U.S./Mexico border states, Francesca and her staff at the BR Nursery have suc-cessfully propagated sixteen “milkweeds”: Asclepias angus-tifolia , A. asperula, A. elata, A. hypoleuca, A. latifolia, A. lemmoni, A. linaria, A. nyctaginifolia, A. oenotheroides, A. speciosa, A. subulata, A. subverticillata, A. texana, A. tuberosa, as well as the climbing vine, Funastrum cynan-choides. As Francesca explains, “We were prompted to intensify milkweed production through contact with Southwest Monarch study, which requested 5-10 thousand milkweed plants for a grow-out to

Francesca Claverie and Andrea Stanley of the Borderlands Res-toration nursery, is shown here instructing Mexican and Native American nurserymen and restoration ecologists on milkweed propagation in Patagonia, Arizona.

(compiled for all the milkweed species they grow): a. 500 – 1,000 lbs/year from a Wisconsin producer b. 400 – 600 lbs/year from an Indiana producer c. Roughly 1,500 lbs/year from a Pennsylvania producer d. Roughly 3,000 lbs/year from an Iowa producer e. Roughly 6,000 lbs/year from a California producer, which currently has 18,000 to 20,000 lbs of seed in stock f. Roughly 2,700 lbs/year from a New York and Michigan producer, with over 6,500 lbs of seed currently in stock g. A large (8,000–10,000 lbs/yr) harvest from managed milkweed

stands from several states aggregated by a Nebraska company3. New projects being funded in 2015 by the National Fish and Wildlife

Foundation Monarch Butterfly Fund, by CECC and by industry are likely to rapidly increase the number of sources of milkweed seeds and the poundage of the two to three dominant species.

4. As a result of increased demand from smaller scale restoration proj-ects, many commercial nurseries and garden seed companies have been exhausting their supplies of container plants and garden seed packets in their retail stock on a regular basis since June 2014.

In summary, an estimated 22,000 to 25,000 lbs of milkweed seeds are now harvested in an average year for large scale plantings; this represents something on the order of 1–2 billion seeds annually produced by just these seven companies. Another 26,000 lbs of unsold seed from previous years’ harvests was still in stock in fall of 2014, but is likely being rapidly depleted due to increased demand. These volumes (which are largely com-prised of just two Midwestern species) should be more than sufficient for seeding DOT lands over the next few years, if there are funds to purchase and plant that much milkweed as part of restoration seed mixes. More importantly, the majority of the seed and nursery companies con-tacted expressed the motivation and capacity to double or triple their seed production if multi-year contracts can be signed and market demand sustains itself over several years or decades. Because the biggest seven com-panies are only a sample of the larger seed industry, it should be recognized that annual milkweed seed production within the industry—and to a lesser degree transplant production—is potentially very large. In fact, each pro-ducer surveyed further made the point that these seeds have been grown at a scale designed to meet past market demand (prior to the Trinational Agreement on Monarch Recovery) at the cost-of-production price point reflective of that scale. They note that if there was more demand at the existing price, they could increase production and bring the price down through greater economies of scale.

Other Potential Sources of Foundation Seed for DOTsWe have identified several potential sources of milkweeds other than the volumes currently held by private industry: 1. Seeds of Success, an interagency native seed collection program, is man-

aged by BLM in collaboration with other federal agencies and partners. Seeds for Success has directed its field collectors to prioritize milkweed seed collection of multiple species and from as many provenances as

TRAINING MILKWEED PROPAGATORS ACROSS BORDERS AND CULTURES: BORDERLANDS RESTORATION

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be planted by residents of Phoenix and Tucson. Since then, public interest in monarch declines is greatly increasing demand. However, from our nursery’s perspective, most of the purchasing power is coming less from individuals and more from agencies and organizations who need a higher volume production of milkweeds for restoration and polli-nator garden needs.” When asked what would most help producers better meet growing demand for milkweeds, Francesca thought-fully replied that “Greater networking and communication between both growers as well as consumer/conservation organizations would allow for public education and the right supply of milkweed species to match up to their region and for markets to balance.” To foster such exchanges, Claverie has helped train both Native American (Diné, O’odham and Hopi) and Mexican individuals interested in the propagation of milkweeds and other native wildflowers. Claverie’s assistant, Andrea Stanley, is of Diné descent, and has presented her experiences with milkweed propagation to other Native Americans involved in the nursery management of native plants. In terms of recommendations Claverie might have for departments of transportation that are considering either direct seeding or transplanting of plugs to highway rights of way, she recommends “small plug plantings of milkweeds during the rainy season in the Southwest is critical for max-imum establishment and success. This prevents depending on the complicated environmental factors required for germination—adequate moisture and temperature, and lack of seed predation—which simplifies the process and improves survivorship. Since many species of milkweed grown in other containers don’t transplant well, plugs are ideal since they are still establishing quickly. Although there might be some loss of young tender plants from transplant shock, the less root disturbance the better, and the com-postable pots used with our plugs are recommended.”

possible. There are already a total of 70 collections of 20 Asclepias spe-cies brought into federal government seed collections between 2002 and 2013. Seeds of Success materials are for foundation seed produc-tion and not typically used directly for habitat restoration. The progeny of the seeds, however, would need to be produced at NRCS Plant Mate-rials Centers, or at operations such as the Tallgrass Prairie Center (see below.) Nevertheless, the BLM itself and its SOS collecting teams get right of first refusal to use this seed overage.

2. Monarch Joint Venture-funded milkweed seed propagation projects, such as 8–9 lbs of seed grown out at the Tallgrass Prairie Center for distribution to Iowa Department of Transportation and other public lands managers. MJV members are among those applying for more seed collection and field production of milkweed transplants for habitat restoration.

3. Monarch Watch collaborations with private nurseries and seed compa-nies that provided just 10,000 to 20,000 plugs to milkweed plantings a few years ago reached 60,000 milkweed plugs in 2014, will approach 100,000 in 2015, and are projected to reach as high as 300,000 in 2016. Foundation grants to Monarch Watch may allow as many as 200,000 plugs to be distributed for free (or at mailing and processing cost) in 2016. About 20 lbs of swamp milkweed seeds have also been produced for Monarch Watch in collaboration with NRCS in Manhattan, KS. Several other groups affiliated with Monarch Watch, like Southwest Monarch Study, contract for plugs produced on consignment and guide the distribution of those plugs produced by contract nurseries such as Borderlands Restoration in Arizona.

4. Xerces Society collaborations with S & S Seed’s Hedgerow Farms, Applewood Seed Company, Native American Seed Company, etc that have produced seeds for sowing and establishment on the order of 1.75 million plants on tens of thousands of acres since 2010.

Steve Buckley of the National Park Service, who assisted in establishing the Madrean Archipelago Plant Propagation Center in southeastern Arizona.

Left: John Anderson shows a roadside planting of pollinator-attracting forbs and grasses at Hedgerow Farms near Winters, CA. Right: Fields of milkweeds for seed production can be machine planted and weeded, but due to staggered ripening of pods, hand harvesting remains the norm.

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5. Ninety-seven or more commercial nurseries in 27 states remain listed on Monarch Watch’s Milkweed Market that sell transplantable milk-weeds directly to (primarily urban) customers. These partially provide stock for the many Monarch Waystations being monitored by citizen scientists. Collaborations with other nurserymen are being fostered by AmericanHort, the January 2014 consolidation of the American Nursery & Landscape Association and the Association of Horticultural Professionals. They will likely produce at least 250,000 to 300,000 transplantable milkweeds for retail sale over the next year as part of the National Pollinator Network initiatives announced on June 3, 2015.

6. At least 67 private seed companies, some of which are associated with the American Seed Trade Association, which distribute seeds of the 23 species of milkweeds now listed on the Xerces Society on-line Milk-weed Seed Finder and on Amazon.com.

7. Despite their due diligence, the on-line sources noted above undoubt-edly underestimate the number of small nurseries going out and getting their own seeds for propagation. For example, the non-profit Desert Survivors in Tucson, which offers more milkweed species than any other U.S. nursery—as many as 18 Asclepias species every year—is not currently listed by either Milkweed Seed Finder or Milkweed Mar-ketplace. In addition, botanical gardens and arboreta such as Chicago Botanical Garden distributed 10,000 milkweed seedlings for free to its members during National Pollinator Month in June 2014, and it is but one of many garden members of the American Public Gardens Associa-tion offering such give-aways.

It is clear that there is considerable capacity to wield among these many potential partners, and their immensely talented and skilled horticulturists. There are also challenges. Milkweed seed is relatively expensive compared to native grasses and most other wildflowers which serve as effective bee nectar forages, as noted above. And depending on milkweed species and

Hedgerow Farms has had its roadside pollinator plantings certified as Pollinator Habitat by the Xerces Society.

When Bill and Jan Neiman began Native American Seed in the upper Blackland Prairies of Texas in 1989, Bill was already a keen observer and user of milkweeds and other wildflowers of the semi-arid West. After 15 years in nursery and landscape construction, Bill wanted to focus more on native landscape plants as a way to reduce water and fertil-izer use, retain and build soils, and attract beneficial insects. These natural resource needs crossover to both rural and urban landscapes. Bill still thinks conventional American nurserymen need to consider a paradigm shift. Years ago, Neiman wrote of his struggles to rethink relationships between healthy agricultural production and native plant habitats that surround croplands: “I have been forced to find some answers, especially in my work with organic farming. I learned to use bene-ficial insects, foliar spraying of plants with fish emulsions and seaweed extracts. I’ve been forced to look at native plants for landscaping, especially as water supplies become scarcer and less affordable.” With that vision in mind, Neiman moved the operations in 1995 to a 63 acre Texas Hill Country farm near the town of Junction. Native American Seed has been at the forefront of habitat restoration with native plants ever since, both as seed producers and as technical consultants on large-scale ecological projects for agencies such as TXDOT, U.S. Depart-ment of Energy, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, USFWS, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. The company also places major importance on serving private landowners. The land-owner is key in a state like Texas where over 95% of the land is privately owned. Native American Seed currently has 21 employees and regularly produces milkweed species that are sold both in small packets for home and school gardens, and in larger quantities for habitat restoration. Bill teams up with his son Weston, son-in-law George Cates and other key employees, mostly all self-taught res-toration specialists. Together they problem-solve the many issues that arise when bringing finicky milkweed species into seed production at the field scale. Add in public out-reach and graphic design skills from Neiman’s daughter Emily, the family farm operation has developed and now markets six commercial pollinator seed mixes, including the

NATIVE AMERICAN SEED: PIONEERS IN WILDFLOWER MIXES FOR MONARCHS

Emily Neiman of Native American Seed celebrates the successful planting of antelope horns milkweed at Common Fords Prairie in an Austin Texas park.

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its conditions for growth, survival rates to seedling size in the wild is far less than 0.5% and may be more like 0.01% to 0.005% to mature (second year) seed-bearing plants.

Growing Plugs for Outplanting in Habitat Restoration ProjectsFor plug production suited to outplanting at restoration sites, seed germina-tion and establishment rates are quite high for native wildflowers (as much as 94% for some lots of pure live seed), but these rates still vary significantly depending on species, and many other factors (seed age, storage conditions, etc.). Many nursery companies use DP50 plugs measuring 2” x 4” x 4.5” in transportable trays of 50, while others use deeper plugs for restoration out-plantings that come in 38 per tray and are left to grow 4–8 weeks longer in greenhouses before outplanting. Since greenhouse production of milkweed plugs for transplanting can run anywhere from $1.00 to $2.50 per plant, it is wise to invest in careful planting and maintenance of these outplants. A study of the difficult-to-propagate purple milkweed (A. purpurascens) trans-plant success in Wisconsin, that indicated of 21 plants surviving transplant shock, only one third of them survived to the end of the second season, while five seedlings were recruited from the transplant’s seed bank over the same two years. Reintroduction of milkweeds for the recovery of monarchs should therefore focus on the species which offer the highest survival rates after ini-tial propagation and subsequent transplanting.

Sites where both corn and milkweeds coexist are becoming less common, as superweeds have outcompeted other native plants for space on farmlands and roadsides in the Corn Belt. GARY NABHAN

Butterfly Retreat Mix, the Pollinator Essentials Mix and the new Sustain the Migration Mix, which represents five different milkweed species in each package. George Cates says paying attention to details associ-ated with distinctive features of each milkweed species is not only key to successfully producing seed, but also for blending them in appropriate quantities into wildflower seed mixes: “You can simply look at values that Native American Seed and other companies place on milkweeds… they are among the costliest wildflower seeds to produce. Because the fruits do not ripen simultaneously on uniform upright stems as many domesticated crops do, hand harvesting remains the norm in the industry. It’s not uncommon for companies to value a garden packet of ten seeds at $3–$6, just to make up for production costs. Regionally, those costs may exceed $10,000 an acre for milkweeds. We have to look at this like bringing to market those little half-pint, clear plastic boxes of raspberries or blueberries you see in the specialty produce section at the grocery store. We cannot look at this like producing bushels of wheat!” Despite production costs for milkweeds that may run 10 to 25 times higher than those for other native wildflowers and grasses, Native American Seed remains deeply committed to milkweed seed production for monarch butterfly recovery. The company has collabo-rated with non-profits such as the Xerces Society and the Nature Conservancy on research, education and restoration projects to ensure locally diverse seeds are available along the migratory corridors of monarchs. Although their work has always been heralded in the largest newspapers in Texas, they also reach out to rural constituencies through publications like the Texas Co-op Power magazine and Mother Earth News helping spread awareness to private landowners. George Cates has deftly summarized how the vision of Native American Seed is distinctive: “When we get caught up on preservation of just one species, we lose sight of the interconnectedness of all life. We need to keep a balanced perspective, always remembering it is our diverse native plants we find at the center,” Cates says. “They are the only organisms that capture energy from the sun and transform it into food for other forms of life to thrive. But our local milkweeds in particular provide multiple services for dozens of spe-cies of native invertebrates, not just monarchs.” “We are certain that the ecological value of our native Texas milkweed seeds increases exponentially when used as a component in hyper-diverse seed mixtures, because land owners who have no intention of ever plowing or developing plant those mixtures as permanent vegeta-tion. Many even go so far as to put those restored lands under permanent conservation easements. The plight of the monarch butterfly is but one chapter in the larger story of environmental degradation, the unintended con-sequences of progress. Therefore we feel like the best way to ensure the survival of any one native species is to ensure the survival of as many as possible. Even those whose role we have yet to study and understand.”

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Conclusion and RecommendationsMonarch habitat recovery will be a major trinational undertaking that will need to engage both informed pro-fessionals, enthusiastic citizen scientists and volunteer labor forces of master gardeners, native plant societies, 4-H clubs and other youth groups over the next decade. The challenge of this large-scale habitat recovery effort for milkweeds will be to motivate these diverse sectors into collective and complementary efforts. Private, non-profit and government players must be committed to collaborate in order to achieve success over the long haul, not just for a year or two. We recommend the following strategies for accomplishing these goals:

1. Encourage state Departments of Transportation to offer peer-to-peer training workshops on the best mowing, planting and maintenance practices to sustain milkweeds in highway rights-of-way.

2. Promote at the state level the inclusion of milkweed seed in all recommended seed mixes for private lands receiving funds for public roadside revegetation and wildlife habitat recovery through CRP and EQIP (Nabhan, Buckley and Dial 2015).

3. Widely distribute the new Xerces Society booklet, Milkweeds: A Conservation Practitioner’s Guide written by Brianna Borders and Eric Lee-Mader, to NRCS agents, highway land-scape architects, nurserymen and ecological restorationists. (Available online as a free PDF download.)

4. Provide nurseries and seed companies longer-term contracts to produce milkweeds.5. Provide private seed production companies with financial incentives for increasing the

number of milkweed species and ecotypes appropriate for different seed transfer zones to be integrated into their seed mixes suited to drilling or broadcasting.

6. Provide private nurseries with financial incentives for increasing the number of milkweed spe-cies and ecotypes appropriate for different seed transfer zones that are grown as deep-rooted restoration plugs in 38 and 50 cell trays.

7. Encourage federal, state and private managers of highway roadsides, railroad, pipeline and transmission line rights-of way to include milkweed seeds in their recommended seed mixes for the enhancement of north-south corridors, and build in long-term maintenance costs into each project.

8. Place interpretative signage along highways at way stations and rest areas to educate the pub-lic about corridor plantings of milkweeds so that landowners adjacent to the rights-of-way might broaden the width of the corridor.

9. Engage native plant societies, entomologists and amateur lepidopterists in monitoring and evaluating the success of plantings relative to monarch and bee recovery.

10. Monitor or prevent the northward spread of naturally occurring A. curassavica, as well as its cultivation on a wider scale, since this tropical species (now grown in at least 6 U.S. states) is likely habitat for the protozoan parasite affecting monarchs, Ophryocystis elecktoscirrha.

This report was compiled in the summer of 2015 by the University of Arizona’s Southwest Center, which hosts www.makewayformonarchs.org: a milkweed-butterfly recovery alliance of farmers, nurserymen, non-profits, universities, corporate partners and faith-based communities. It was funded with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and National Park Service. To suggest further refinements or offer corrections, please contact gpnabhan@email.arizona.edu.

A good weekend’s bounty of four species of milkweed pods: A. syriaca, (Common); A. exaltata (Poke/Tall), A. tuberosa (Butterfly Milkweed) and A. incarnata (Swamp). INA WARREN

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Literature CitedBorders, B. and E. Lee-Mader. 2014. Milkweeds: A Conservation Practitioner’s Guide. Xerces Society, Portland, OR.Flockhart, D. T. T., Pichancourt, J.-B., Norris, D. R., and T.G. Martin. 2015. Unravelling the annual cycle in a migratory animal: breeding-season habitat loss drives population declines of monarch butterflies. Journal of Animal Ecology 84: 155–165. doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.12253Harper-Lore, B. and M. Wilson. 2000. Roadside Use of Native Plants. Island Press, Washington, D.C.Hartzler, R.G. 2010. Reduction in common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) occurrence in Iowa cropland from 1999 to 2009. Crop Protection 29: 1542-1544.Hopwood, J. 2010. Pollinators and Roadsides: Managing Roadsides for Bees and Butterflies. Xerces Society Invertebrate Conservation Guidelines. http://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/roadside-guidelines_xerces- society1.pdfLuna, T. and R.K. Dumroese. 2013. Monarchs (Danaus plexippus) and milk-weeds (Asclepias species): the current situation and methods for propagating milkweeds. Native Plants Journal 14: 5-15.Nabhan, G., S. Buckley, and H. Dial. 2015. Pollinator Plants of the Desert Southwest: Native Milkweeds (Asclepias ssp.). USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, Tucson Plant Materials Center, Tucson, AZ. AZPMC Technical Note No. 16-1. Pleasants, J.M. and K. Oberhauser. 2012. Milkweed loss in agricultural fields because of herbicide use: Effect on the monarch butterfly population. Insect Conservation and Diversity 6:135-144.Semmens, D. R. Widerholt, J.E. Diffendorfer, W. Thogmartin and L. Lopez-Hoffman. 2015. Monarch Conservation Partnership Preliminary Results. Presented at the Trilateral Committee XX Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, April.Rager, M., L. D. Adams, and V. Wojcik. 2014. Monarch Habitat Development on Utility Rights-of-Ways. Pollinator Partnership, San Francisco CAReeder, K.F., D.M. Debinski, and B.J. Danielson. 2005. Factors affecting butterfly uses of filter strips in Midwestern USA. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 109: 40 –47. Wines, M. 2013. Setting the table for a regal butterfly comeback, with milkweed. New York Times, December 20:1. Wojcik, V.A. and S. Buchmann. 2012. Pollinator conservation on electrical transmission and roadside rights-of-way. Journal of Pollination Ecology 7 [3]: 16-26.

Showy milkweed, Asclepias speciosa. PETER GORDON & DARNISHA COVERSON

BLM WY020, SEEDS OF SUCCESS

“At length, when the seeds are matured and cease to require

nourishment from the parent plant, being weaned, and the

pod with dryness and frost bursts, the pretty fishes loosen and

lift their brown scales, somewhat bristling a little; the extremi-

ties of the silken threads detach themselves from the core and

from being the conduits of nutriment to the seed, perchance

to become the buoyant balloon which, like some spiders’ webs,

bear the seeds to new and distant fields.”

—Henry David Thoreau (www.walden.org)

Shucked seed pods of Common Milkweed, Asclepias syriaca. INA WARREN

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SEEDS AND PLUGS NEEDED FOR RESTORATION BY REGION

Midwest and Northeast The Midwest and Northeast regions extend from the east coast north of the 36th parallel, and westward beyond the 100th meridian. These two regions are combined since they share the same milkweed species although the need for seeds and plugs varies by ecoregion. These regions represent the main summer breeding areas for monarchs in the eastern United States. The main monarch host plant is Asclepias syriaca (common milkweed). Other species used by monarchs, in order of their abundance and prefer-ence, are A. incarnata (swamp milkweed), A. tuberosa (butterflyweed), A. verticillata (whorled milkweed), and A. exaltata (poke milkweed).

Midwest Ecoregions include: 212, 222, and 251Northeast Ecoregions include: 212 (east of Lake Huron), M212, 221 & M221

SoutheastThe Southeast includes all states south of the 36th parallel, and westward from the Atlantic seaboard to the 95th meridian in eastern Oklahoma (NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA, AR, TN). The milkweeds used by monarchs include A. syriaca and A. exaltata (higher elevations from NC to northern GA), A. incarnata, A. tuberosa, A. humistrata (ecoregion 232 but mostly FL), A. perennis (ecoregions 232 and 234). The most widespread and easiest milkweeds to grow in this region are, A. tuberosa (butterfly weed), A. incar-nata (swamp milkweed). A. viridis (green antelopehorn) occurs west of the Mississippi in AR and LA. A. verticillata occurs in FL and parts of NC. In the southern portion of the region, A. variegata (white milkweed) is highly sought after for its appearance and behavior. A. perennis (aquatic milkweed) occurs only in hydrated soils. A. humistrata (sandhill/pinewoods milkweed) is recommended for some regions of Florida.

Southeast Ecoregions include: M222, 231, M231, 232, 234, & 411

South Central The South Central region includes Texas and Oklahoma (exclusive of West Texas). The main monarch host plants in this region are A. viridis (green antelope horn milkweed), A. asperula (antelope horn milkweed), A. latifolia (broadleaf milkweed) and A. oenotheroides (Zizotes milkweed). A. incarnata (swamp milkweed) which is mostly limited to river bottoms and A. tuberosa (butterfly weed) which can be found along roadsides and in some grasslands are also used by monarchs. South and West Texas are home to numerous milkweed species but their use by monarchs is not well documented.

South Central Ecoregions include: 255, 315, 311, 251, 331, and 332. West (Intermountain and Pacific Northwest) The west region covers the area west of the 100th meridian except West TX, AZ, NM, NV, and CA. Asclepias speciosa (showy milkweed) occurs in all the western states and is the top choice for restoration in this region with A. latifolia (broadleaf milkweed) a second choice.

West Ecoregions include: 331, 332, 341, 342 and numerous smaller ecore-gions related to terrain and rainfall.

APPENDIX 1: Milkweed Seed Needs in Regions of the U.S.by Chip Taylor, Monarch Watch, University of Kansas

Of the 76 species of native milkweeds in the United States, less than one third are currently available as seeds or transplantable plugs in quantities sufficient for immediate use in monarch butterfly recovery. Some of these species are rare, while a few are threatened, endangered or candidate species of concern. Mon-archs utilize about 30 of these species as host plants. Our analyses have indicated that over the last decade, there has been roughly 30,000 lbs/yr of seed of various milkweed species commercially produced for use in roadside plantings, habitat restoration and pollinator gardens. If most of that seed were to be used for resto-ration at a rate of one ounce per acre, then it would be theoretically possible to restore about 480,000 acres of monarch habitat per year. Unfortunately, this level of seed production is one or two orders of magnitude too low to offset the current annual losses of milkweeds due to conversion of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) set-asides and grasslands to row crops, as well as urbanization and the excessive use of herbicides on weeds for farmlands and along roadsides. To better target the milkweed species most needed for monarch recovery, Monarch Watch offers the fol-lowing region-by-region recommendations. However, there are current bottlenecks in milkweed seed supply chain for the following regions: 1. Midwest (good sources and levels of production for

foundation seed, but not enough to compensate for recent habitat losses);

2. Northeast (good sources and levels with less need than in the Midwest);

3. South Central (fair sources and level of production for east and central TX, and OK, but very little seed relative to need);

4. Southeast (almost no seed);5. West (variable, with best coverage in CA); 6. Southwest (good diversity of species in AZ and

West TX, but low demand).7. California (limited to one of the seven species used

by monarchs)

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SouthwestThe Southwest region includes Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and West Texas. A. speciosa occurs at the higher elevations in each of these states (except West TX) and is a good choice for restoration at these higher eleva-tions. At lower elevations species adapted to more xeric conditions such as A. subulata, A. angustifolia, A. linaria, and A. subverticillata, A. englemanniania are used by monarchs. A. tuberosa which can be found at intermediate elevations is also used as a host. A. subverticillata has been associated with livestock poisonings and should not be used for restoration in areas used by grazing animals. Based on the preferences by monarchs and their poten-tial for restoration, we recommend the collecting of seeds and propagation of A. angustifolia (Arizona milkweed), A. subulata (rush milkweed), A. asperula (antelope horn/spider milkweed), and A. tuberosa (butterfly weed, the yellow-flowered western biotype). In addition, A. fascicularis (Mexican whorled/narrowleaf milkweed) can be used to restore monarch habitat in portions of Nevada where this plant is native.

Southwest Ecoregions include: 313, M313, 321 & 322

CaliforniaCalifornia is the center of the distributions for six milkweed species used by monarchs; A. fascicularis (Mexican whorled/narrowleaf milkweed), A. erosa (desert milkweed), A. californica (California milkweed), A. cordifo-lia (heartleaf milkweed), A. eriocarpa (woolypod milkweed) and A. vestita (woolly milkweed). Of these, A. fascicularis is the most widespread and widely used by monarchs. A. speciosa is used as a host in the northern half of the state. Each species has a unique distribution within California and restoration efforts should target counties in which these species are known to occur. Seed is available for A. fascicularis and to a lesser extent for A. speciosa but is scarce to non-existent for the other species.

California Ecoregions include: 242, M242, 261, M261, 262, M262, 263

Modified from R. G. Bailey, Ecoregions of the United States, USDA Forest Service, revised 1994.

Mountains with altitudinal zonation. These provinces are named for the spectrum of zones from lower to upper (subnival); e.g., semi-desert – coniferous

M

Gary Paul Nabhan, PhD.University of Arizona

gpnabhan@email.arizona.edu

Ina Warrenmakewayformonarchs@live.com

Chip Taylor, PhD University of Kansas-Monarch Watch

www.monarchwatch.org. Make Way for Monarchs Advisory Board Member

Make Way for MonarchsP. O. Box 93, Brevard, NC 28712www.makewayformonarchs.org

facebook.com/MakeWayForMonarchstwitter.com/M8Way4Monarchs

A little honeybee helper in the milkweed patch in western North Carolina. INA WARREN

This publication was conceived, researched and edited by Gary Nabhan and Ina Warren of www.makewayformonarchs.org, a grassroots alliance of

farmers, scientists, writers, artists and educators working to recover the imperiled interactions between milkweeds and monarch butterflies. It was also

reviewed and supplemented by Orley "Chip" Taylor, founder of Monarch Watch, and Professor at the University of Kansas. See www.monarchwatch.org.

It was copy-edited and designed by Joan Carstensen Design in Flagstaff, Arizona. Paul Mirocha contributed illustrations, and Gary Nabhan, Ina Warren,

Megan Haidet of Seeds of Success, Herb Knudsen of Monarch Flyway, George Ball, Jr. of W. Atlee Burpee Company and George Cates of Native American

Seed contributed photos. Support for this publication came from the University of Arizona's Southwest Center W.K. Kellogg Endowment and from the

National Park Service. We thank Bruce Rodan of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) for his efforts to promote a cohesive

"milkweed seed supply chain" for monarch butterfly recovery.