Soil seed banks provide seeds for the redevelopment of plant communities, and can be important component of the ecological restoration of degraded ecosystems, particularly when the species remain viable in the soil for long periods of time. However, if key structural dominants are missing from seed banks or propagule banks, farmed fields can be difficult to restore to wetland, e. g., tussock-forming sedge meadow and forested wetlands ( Taxodium distichum; Middleton 2003). We asked the following research questions: (1) How does the composition of seed banks change in soybean fields (converted from sedge meadows), paddy fields (converted from soybean fields) and natural sedge meadows? (2) How do the species richness and density of seeds in the seed banks change with increased farming time and what is the value of farmed seed banks for restoring the vegetation of sedge meadow?
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