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Seabeach Amaranth Making a Comeback KIAWAH ISLAND, South Carolina, January 3, 2002 (ENS) - Clinging to shifting sands, seabeach amaranth plants are threatened by winds, waves and extinction. But over the past decade, the seabeach amaranth has been making a comeback, reappearing on east coast shorelines from Massachusetts to South Carolina. The seabeach amaranth exists on barrier island beaches and inlets of the Atlantic coast. Currently on the federal list of threatened species, it grows where other plants will not and tends to disappear if other plants move in on it. The amaranth slows winds, which then drop the sand they carry. Soon dunes build around these plants with bright red stems and green leaves. When other plants move in, the amaranth disappears. The Army Corps of Engineers is looking at the planting of seabeach amaranth as a way to stabilize sand and build dunes on renourishment sites.
Consumers in many countries enjoy cultivated amaranths as both a leafy vegetable and as a cereal. They offer more bioavailable iron than spinach and have a rare, high quality plant protein that can be used to enrich grain products. About 5,000 acres of amaranths are grown annually in the United States for grain that is incorporated into health foods. Far away from the eastern beaches, samples of seabeach amaranth are being conserved as part of a comprehensive collection of amaranth germplasm maintained in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Plant Germplasm System. The amaranth collection, located at the North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station in Ames, Iowa, comprises about 3,500 accessions. The entire germplasm collection at Ames comprises 47,000 accessions with more than 340 genera representing 1,900 species. It includes cultivated grain and vegetable types, ornamental and wild species from many parts of the world. David Brenner, curator of the Amaranthus germplasm at the Ames facility, collected six distinct populations with large seed samples representing many individual plants on ocean beaches along the North and South Carolina coastlines. Then, he tested the seeds to develop methods to regenerate the species. By keeping the seeds for three months in cool, moist surroundings, Brenner obtained about 90 percent success rate. In September 1999, Hurricane Floyd wiped out the only known wild plants in South Carolina and all the amaranth in North Carolina, which was the plant's stronghold. Because the amaranth is so rare, yet so valuable, South Carolina state biologist Richard Hamilton began planting experimental plots in 1999 on beaches such as Seabrook, Kiawah and Dewees islands. "We hope to stabilize the population in South Carolina with hopes of reintroducing it to its former range so it can be taken off the threatened species list," he said. Hamilton's dream is for the amaranth to become so popular that nurseries will grow it and beachfront residents will plant it because it stabilizes the dunes. Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2001. All rights reserved. |
The seabeach amaranth is of special interest to agriculture because it has
particularly large seeds for the genus and could be the source of crop
improving genes for cultivated amaranths.
