Coat seeds to deter small mammals in restoration projects

View brief.

Restoration efforts can be negatively impacted by increases in small mammals. These small mammals consume larger seeds of the native plant community, hampering the establishment of new plants and the recovery of existing plants. An approach to overcome this problem is to coat seeds being used for restoration projects with seed predation deterrents. RMRS researchers have identified substances successful in deterring seed predation, including chili powder, neem oil, and activated carbon. In this study, the increased seed recruitment success was enough to offset the cost of coating the seeds.