Moses Lake seed breeder honored

SEATTLE — Jerry Benson of Moses Lake was recently honored by the Washington Native Plant Society, according to an announcement from the society.

Benson, owner of BFI Native Seeds in Moses Lake, was named a WNPS Arthur R. Kruckeberg Fellow, according to the announcement. This is the highest honor given by the Society and recognizes outstanding contributions to the understanding and preservation of Washington’s flora.

According to the announcement, Benson has a degree in botany from Central Washington University and worked for 30 years as a restoration ecologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. He recognized that there were better alternatives to the commercially available non-native and cultivar grass and forb seeds that were traditionally used in restoration projects. In retirement, he used his farm background, botany knowledge, and experience to found BFI Native Seeds, which has presented regularly at the WSU Grant-Adams Master Gardeners’ annual eco-gardening symposium.

Native plants have been gaining prominence among gardeners in the Columbia Basin because they use very little water, a precious commodity in this climate.

“People just think of sagebrush when we think of our native plants, but there's so many beautiful wildflowers out there that actually thrive in our yards,” Dinah Rouleau, program manager with the Columbia Basin Conservation District, told the Columbia Basin Herald in an interview last year. “They like our sandy soil that people think is pretty crappy, but they love it and they like our desert landscape without any water.”

Benson researched and developed methods to grow locally sourced native plant seeds and restoration strategies to ensure their success, the WNPS wrote. He is the lead author of the publication “Shrub-Steppe and Grassland Restoration Manual for the Columbia River Basin,” which has guided landowners and managers of large-scale projects since 2011. In the past five years, BFI Native Seeds has produced 1.4 million pounds of seeds for restoration work throughout Washington and Oregon.

“Jerry is widely respected in his field and has influenced numerous disciplines, Kelly Evans, a natural resource specialist with the U.S. Forest Service, wrote in the announcement. “He is an expert in native plant restoration and native plant propagation on a large scale. His willingness to share his experience and knowledge is phenomenal and his contribution to the advancement of using genetically appropriate native plant material in restoration is history in the making.”

“We all work atop the foundation that Jerry built, and many of us continue to seek his counsel,” wrote Kurt Merg, shrub-steppe restoration coordinator with the WDFW, in the announcement. “I can’t think of anyone that has contributed more than Jerry to the conservation of native plant communities in Washington.”

The WNPS Fellows award is named after Art Kruckeberg, who founded WNPS in 1976 and was a longtime professor of botany at the University of Washington, according to the announcement.