Seed Balls: The World in Your Hands

What are seed balls and how are they made?
Re-vegetation of large areas is very expensive and time consuming. Efforts have been made in the last few years to try a different method of reseeding that is not only relatively inexpensive but has proven to be extremely effective and is low maintenance. This method, referred to as seed balls, is the original creation of Masanobu Fukuoka, a Japanese scientist and farmer, who is considered the founder of natural farming.

Seed balls have four components – seed, humus, red clay, and water. A seed mixture of plants that belong together in forest guilds is created. In the correct proportions, the seed mixture, humus, clay and water are mixed, and small (1/2”-1”) clay balls are formed. They are dried for a few days, and then are ready for broadcasting on the forest floor. It takes about ten seed balls per square yard to do the job.

The mix of plants being used in the seed balls is:
 
Grasses
Wildflowers
Blue grama
Purple aster
Sideoats grama
Skyrocket
Indian Ricegrass
Long-flowered gilly
Sheep fescue
Blue flax
Western Wheatgrass
Rocky Mountain Penstemon
Little Bluestem
Mexican hat
Sand Dropseed
Firewheel
Pine Dropseed
Black-foot Daisy
Junegrass
Prairie Coneflower
Threadgrass
Lance-leaved Coreopsis
Slender wheatgrass
Pale Evening Primrose