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As a result of wildfire, livestock, wildlife, human activities, and drier hotter growing conditions, lower-elevation Basin and Wyoming big sagebrush rangelands have undergone large-scale conversion from a diverse, healthy perennial plant-dominated ecosystems to near monocultures of invasive annual grasses, particularly, cheatgrass and medusahead.� Seedling establishment and plant persistence are of paramount importance to a successful rangeland seeding.� Historically in the early 1900�s and continued through much of the 19th century, revegetation efforts focused on the use of introduced grasses such as crested wheatgrass and Siberian wheatgrass because of their superior stand establishment, plant persistence, and competitive ability to suppress invasive annual grasses under dry hot environments receiving less than 300 mm average annual precipitation.� With the increased emphasis in the last decade to utilize native species in rangeland restoration seedings, plant breeding efforts have focused on seed yield, seedling establishment, persistence, and competitiveness in the following species; �bottlebrush squirreltail, basin wildrye, �slender wheatgrass,� bluebunch wheatgrass, Snake River wheatgrass, thickspike wheatgrass, Sandberg bluegrass, and western wheatgrass.� Across multiple rangeland locations, the newer varieties in most instances had increased seedling frequency vs. older varieties. �Examples will be given that describes plant selection and subsequent improvement compared to the unimproved plant materials.