Hello all, I use the Native Plant Propagation Database frequently to look for ideas on how to germinate native seeds - but I am troubled this morning because the website seems to suddenly no longer be functional. Does anyone else know about this, is that amazing resource the latest casualty of the Trump Administration??
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why would you reach that conclusion? you might want to check the organization’s own sources. Likely they have social media of some sort.
also, that does not appear to be a website controlled by the US federal government, so I don’t see how the Trump administration would have the power to affect it.
hopefully it’s a temporary thing. but the wayback machine could work too (would link but on mobile)
The database is operated by the Reforestation, Nurseries, and Genetic Resources (RNGR) team, which is funded through and heavily tied to the US Forest Service. If funding from USDA was cut, it’s possible the site would no longer be supported.
That said, none of the references to RNGR or the database have been removed from Forest Service’s own website, and I’m not seeing anything to suggest the site was intentionally taken down. The resource also isn’t directly tied to any particularly high-profile or controversial topics (e.g., Climate Change), so there’s no obvious reason to think it would have been specifically targeted. It seems more likely that this is due to a server outage or another technical issue that will hopefully be resolved soon.
looking at the latest copy of the website in the Internet Archive (https://web.archive.org/web/20251015140910/https://rngr.net/), it looks like the site fell under the umbrella of Southern Regional Extension Forestry (who look like a specialist IT team for ag extension stuff). you could reach out to them to see what they know (https://sref.info/about/who-we-are).
Looks like it’s back up?