Idaho nursery gives forests a start in South Dakota, other western states

[ccharles000]

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho -- Over a three-year period, wildfires charred 50,000 acres of the Custer National Forest in South Dakota. In some 1,000-acre tracts, not a single ponderosa pine tree remained to cast new seeds, and the seeds in the soil had burned up.

Natural regeneration "would have taken 100 or more years," said Dennis Sandbak, the Custer forest's silviculturist. To speed up the process, he ordered native pine, ash and alder seedlings from the U.S. Forest Service Nursery in Coeur d'Alene.

The nursery is a genetic storehouse for Western forests. One of six nurseries in the national forest system, it grows seedlings for federal agencies in Montana, central Oregon and parts of Idaho, Washington and South Dakota. The Coeur d'Alene nursery also supplies high-elevation tree seedlings for Utah and Wyoming.

Each national forest has crews collect pinecones, which are sent to the nursery for safekeeping. The nursery grows seedlings to order on a 220-acre tract of the Rathdrum Prairie.

"It's kind of a complicated process," said Melissa Jenkins, a silviculturist at the Flathead National Forest in Montana, which ordered 650,000 seedlings this year. "You can't just go to a big-box nursery and buy a spruce tree from wherever and plant it on the Flathead. The trees are adapted to the area they grow in."

Even the same species of spruce has different characteristics at different locations. Buds sprout later on trees that grow higher up the mountain, so they don't get nipped by frost.

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_3a0317c6-be96-11de-be85-001cc4c03286.html

[BanzaiBonnie]

1. For years my brother planted about 10,000 baby trees a year

on our family farm.

One of the things we learned through study is that in this area, where all we had ever seen was Douglas fir, is that when the pioneers came there used to be a native species of pine mixed with the fir. The pine was what they recognized and they cut it all down to build their cabins.

We have begun to reforest with a mix of Doug fir and White pine. My grandsons collect cones from the fir and my brother grows at least some of the trees from that seed. It's pretty interesting learning about all this.

[havocmom]

2. There is a government run plant resources center in MT too. They get local seed started as requested

They have been known to send out requests for seed from specific species to field offices of various agencies to meet needs/requests.

Havocdad loves to send them stuff, and has been provided with lots of seedlings for people in our area too.

Thanks for posting article, ccharles000. The more people understand about how cooperation benefits us all, the more likely people are to cooperate. ;)