April 2006 

The NRCS Plant Materials Program newsletter for the conservation community 

Culturally Significant Plant Plays Important Role 

at North Dakota Plant Materials Center 

Sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata) is a native grass 

traditionally used by Native American cultures for many 

purposes. The source of sweetgrass’s aroma, which 

smells like vanilla, is coumarin. This plant compound 

has been used for hundreds of years as a plant extract for 

The rhizomes are divided and put into small individual 

containers to grow out in the greenhouse. It is an early, 

cool-season plant species, and growth is rapid. 

Often seedheads are formed in the center’s greenhouse 

within three weeks of both fragrance and transplanting. The medicinal use. plants are hardened off 

Native American in May in the 

cultures burn braided lathhouse, and 10 

sweetgrass twists in plants each are readied 

traditional ceremonies, to ship to cooperators 

using the sweet scented at the end of the month. 

smoke as a purifying When the young plants incense. are placed in a garden 

The species is locally like setting with good 

subject to over- weed control, the 

collecting and is plants establish quickly 

sensitive to grazing. and rhizomes can 

spread rapidly. A collection of Hundreds of new northern-hardy plants from rhizomes sweetgrass, originating the first year are from a sandbar in the 

Missouri River near For time immemorial elaborate coiled baskets made from possible, and thousands 

Bismarck, has been sweetgrass have been an important cultural product for many the second year. 

distributed throughout native American tribes Approximately 165 

the three-state area for source: USDA orders of sweetgrass 

testing and tribal propagation. have been distributed in the last seven years. The 

Propagation beds have been established at numerous number of rhizomes that have been produced from those 

reservations with plants being increased and distributed plants in that time would surely be in the millions!

to tribal members.

The process begins each spring at the Bismarck PMC For more information go to: 

when rhizomes of sweetgrass are harvested from a Bismarck, North Dakota, Plant Materials Center, 

sprigging bed in April to fill requests received through http://plant-materials.nrcs.usda.gov/ndpmc/

each state plant materials committee. 

Contact: Dwight A. Tober, 

dwight.tober@nd.usda.gov 

Plant Materials Program

Visit us: http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov 
EWP provides technical and financial assistance to Hurricane Damaged States to Get Funding address public safety and restoration efforts on 

From NRCS Program 

The Plant Materials Program’s Coastal Resource 

webpage now has a link to the NRCS Emergency 

Watershed Protection (EWP) program resource 

page where information on funds available to help 

communities in three hurricane states to protect life 

and property from fires can be found. 

These EWP program 

private lands. NRCS will pay landowners and 

landusers up to 75 percent of the cost, or up to $150 

per acre, to remove dead or dying timber adjacent to 

important community structures such as schools and 

homes. 

 In the supplemental appropriations approved in 

December 2005, 

funds are now Congress expanded 

available to build EWP program 

firebreaks to reduce authority to pay part 

the threat of fires of the cost for timber 

from downed timber removal on private, 

and create a safer non-industrial land 

environment for adversely impacted 

residents. by the hurricanes. 

The firebreaks will be Normally, NRCS uses 

funded with a portion EWP funds to pay 

of $300 million in Hurricane are among nature’s worst storms landowners and 

supplemental source: NASA landusers to remove 

appropriations approved by Congress in December debris from stream channels, road culverts and 

2005 for six hurricane-stricken states, including bridges; reshape and protect eroded banks; correct 

Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. (A firebreak damaged drainways; repair levees and structures; 

is a strip of bare land or vegetation that slows down and reseed damaged areas. 

or buffers a fire.) 

This conservation practice includes access roads, 

vegetated firebreaks, plowed or disked firebreaks 

and grazed firebreaks. USDA Service Centers will 

work very closely with state forestry departments to 

ensure proper procedures are being followed as they 

help communities and landowners carry out this 

conservation practice. 

Communities or landowners interested in this 

assistance should contact their local USDA 

Service Center at 

http://offices.sc.egov.usda.gov/locator/ 

app?agency=nrcs 

Additional information about EWP is available 

at: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/ewp 

Our Mission Statement: Deliver plant-science technology to meet the nation’s natural resources conservation needs. 

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, 

sexual orientation, and marital or family status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program 

information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD).To file a complaint of discrimination, write the USDA, Director, 

Office of Civil Rights, Room 326W, Whitten Building, 14th and Independence Avenue, SW. Washington, D.C., 20250-9410 or call (202) 720-5964 (voice or TDD). USDA is an equal 

opportunity provider and employer. 

Visit us: http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov