John Day Plant Nursery Capacity Support

The John Day Native Plant Nursery serves both the John Day Watershed Restoration Program and the Upper John Day Conservation Lands Program (both are BPA funded programs), as well as local National Forest Service, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Watershed Councils and private land owners, by propagating native riparian plants for habitat restoration projects benefiting salmonids. In 2019, the nursery propagated approximately 40,000 plants, which strained capacity and still did not meet demand within the Basin. (Due to COVID-19 restrictions and cancellations, 2020 was not representative of nursery/restoration trends.) Funding will expand nursery capacity through infrastructure updates. Additional capacity will allow the Nursery to expand total propagation of native riparian plants and increase capacity of holdover plants, while maintaining and improving the quality of locally sourced plant stock. Nursery capacity support includes:

• Update greenhouse and irrigation systems (currently 12 years old) (PCSRF funds)

• Salaries and wages for Project coordination (BPA funds)

• Incidental materials and supplies to complete project (BPA funds)

A key limiting factor to native fish populations throughout the John Day Basin is increasing stream temperatures (John Day River Basin TMDL and WQMP, Oregon DEQ). MCR Chinook and MCR Steelhead have both been shown to be highly vulnerable to changing climatic conditions such as rising water temperature (Crozier et al 2021). Riparian zone plant communities increase ecosystem resilience to these changes in climate by providing shade that regulates stream temperatures. Like many other Oregon basins that support anadromous fish, anthropogenic impacts have negatively affected riparian zones along the John Day and its tributaries, in some cases to the point of entirely eliminating plant communities from the landscape.

The Nursery’s mission is to “propagate native plants of cultural and ecological importance for use in riparian restoration projects that aim to protect, manage, and enhance habitat that supports culturally significant fish populations for the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon.” To accomplish this, locally-adapted native plants are propagated for use in restoration projects throughout the Basin, where they play an important role in improving fish habitat by restoring self-sustaining ecosystem functions and processes. In addition to providing shade, riparian vegetation stabilizes stream banks, prevents bank erosion, traps sediments and nutrients, produces in-stream woody debris, and increases habitat heterogeneity for fish and for macroinvertebrates that feed native fish.

The nursery collects plant material for propagation from healthy sites within climatic zones appropriate for each restoration project. Zonal propagation helps to ensure plant stocks are adapted to local conditions, while also maintaining sufficient diversity to respond to changing climatic conditions and minimizing adverse effects to local plant genetics (Bower et al. 2014).

Plant survivorship is monitored both qualitatively and quantitatively across the project areas. Monitoring data is fed back into planting techniques and locations to improve survivorship, and planting locations are revisited and replanted until plant density and diversity targets are reached. The nursery is now holding over plants for up to three years to increase survivorship in the most degraded riparian sites. This funding will increase capacity to accommodate these larger plants and increase the total number of plants the nursery can propagate, thereby expanding the area within the basin that the nursery can serve. In 2021, over 30 different species of riparian plants will be installed at 15 sites across 7 organizations. Dramatic riparian zone recovery has been demonstrated at sites planted and protected with cattle and wildlife fencing. Plants are protected against herbivory for all locations.