CORTEZ, Colo.—Rolling fields of purple wildflowers stretch into the distance, backdropped by white mountain peaks. It’s flowering time for the 90 acres of wildflowers planted by Southwest Seed near Hovenweep National Monument close to the Colorado-Utah border.
“This is my favorite part. It’s much prettier than grasses,” Walter Henes III said while surveying the fields he planted.
The scenery may be beautiful, but the farmers are most interested in the seeds the flowers will produce. After harvesting those seeds, the Henes will dry, clean and sell them.
The company, which Walter Henes Jr. started 40 years ago and continues with the help of his son Walter Henes III and daughter Robby Henes, found a niche market for its native wildflower seeds. Buyers are mainly government agencies and companies looking for native plants to revegetate disturbed areas throughout the West, the younger Henes said.
Only a few companies fill that niche.
“It’s an advantage of being an expert in the small field,” Henes said. “No one can say you’ve made a mistake, because we’re learning as we go along.”
Southwest Seed plants mainly perennial native wildflowers that do well with a minimum of irrigation, cultivation or fertilizer.
Five different varieties of penstemon are planted, in various shades of purple, lavender and pink. The penstemons are self-pollinating.
Another field has rows of yellow Hooker’s balsam root, found commonly in ponderosa pine forests. Southwest Seed is growing that for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Idaho, which is trying to find native forbs to replant 1 million acres that burned, Henes said.
Rows of the purple Utah sweetvetch bloom in another field, where a low constant buzz emits from the plants. The flower is not self-pollinating, so beekeeper Brad Milligan placed 16 hives nearby, giving the bees a food source while helping seed production. Sweetvetch is drought tolerant, so Henes irrigates it only once. He must cultivate weeds from it, and he occasionally sprays herbicide.
“I try not to spray, but if I have to, I do it at night so we don’t kill the bees,” Henes said.
“It’s a high dollar crop and sells for at least $50 a pound, but the first and second years after you plant, there’s no crop, so you have to wait,” he said.
For the dryland production, flowers are planted in rows with more space between, to maximize natural moisture.
In many ways, the common problems of farming apply to wildflowers.
“We’ve had a lot of bug problems this year,” Henes said.
Bugs diminish seed production. Henes also considers climate, soil type, pH of soil and timing of moisture in the fall. His degree in agronomy and range science from Colorado State University comes in handy, but he notes that he grew up learning agriculture.
He credits CSU experts with helping him occasionally. For instance, if an unknown insect is affecting the flowers, he sends samples to a CSU scientist, who tries to help solve the problem.
Henes said he is breaking new ground by modifying equipment to handle the needs of large-scale wildflower farming. Flower seed differs from other seed varieties, so planters were modified, cultivators were set up differently, and the combines that harvest the seed were cannibalized for the special task.
Harvesting seeds presents more problems for Henes because each species requires a unique technique. Penstemon, for instance, grows its seeds in pods, which dry upright. Henes pulls a combine through those to harvest the seed. Some seeds must be hand-picked, a tedious and labor intensive chore. Others, like the sweetvetch, are swathed, laid in a windrow to dry for three or four days, then picked up with a combine.
Southwest seed is also raising the scarlet globe mallow for commercial seed production. The flower is common locally, growing wild all over. But the seeds are backbreaking to collect by hand, so this year Henes plans to try mowing the flowers. He will then collect the seed in a bag before drying and processing.
Lewis flax, a lavender flower that blooms in the morning, is another product. It was named after Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804.
Henes Junior was a geologist with Union Carbide when he bought a farm on Fish Creek near Dolores and raised cows, goats and pigs.
“He planted potatoes, but they kept failing, so he got into grasses to support his potato habit,” Henes III said about his father.
Grass seed of many varieties still forms the major product for the company, with 600 acres under production, but since the 1980s, they’ve also tried various wildflowers.
“We have seven varieties of wildflowers in production now, and another three or four types in test plots,” Henes said.
Customers for the wildflower seed include national parks, coal mines, highway construction firms, oil companies and government agencies that revegetate disturbed areas with native plants. Most seeds are sold in 50-pound bags.
Local gardeners can buy a quarter-pound bag of wildflower seed to cover 1,000 square feet from local nurseries or directly from Southwest Seed at the company’s office in Dolores.
The company also provides a service to individuals who collect seeds from sagebrush, rabbit brush, four-wing saltbush, winterfat, bitterbrush, cliffrose, and other native plants, then take them to Southwest Seed to clean. The seed company has 10 employees.
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