Seed to Seedling: What it Takes to Grow Conifers for Reforestation Projects
Seedlings in the Colorado State Forest Service Nursery in Fort Collins, CO
Winter is a quiet time of year for communities working on reforestation initiatives, including our partners at Santo Domingo Pueblo and the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, but winter is a critical time for our nursery partners and the baby seedlings that will be planted in the coming months. Tree planting is both a culmination and a beginning – it is the culmination of a nearly year-long process of growing baby seedlings and the beginning of their adaptation into the natural environment.
Reforestation begins with a seed, unlike the species many of us grow in our gardens, conifer seed ideally needs to be local, collected from the area where trees will eventually be planted out. To complicate matters, Ponderosa Pine, one of the primary species we plant, only puts on a significant seed crop every 8 to 10 years so robust collection efforts are vital.
Once our nursery partners, primarily the Colorado State Forest Service Nursery in Fort Collins, CO and the John. T. Harrington Forestry Research Center in Mora, NM, have the needed seed and TWP knows our target planting numbers the seeds need to go through a stratification process before planting in containers. Stratification is the process of simulating natural conditions to break dormancy and kickstart germination. Once seedlings have come up, the nursery works hard to provide ideal growing conditions including temperature, water, and nutrients. Metrics such as root development and above ground growth indicate when trees are ready to leave the nursery. In order to avoid shocking the baby trees during out planting, a couple months prior the nursery begins to dial back the ideal conditions and move the trees to an environment more like those they will face in nature, this process is known as hardening off and is critical to seedling success.
We are grateful for the work of our partner nurseries for providing the seedlings the essential early care to ensure they are ready to be planted and benefit our partners and the natural world.
We are also extremely thankful to donors like you, without your kindness and generosity we could not support our partners and do this important work. We hope you see your contributions the way we do, as seeds planted and full of promise.
Seedlings ready to be planted on the Santo Domingo Pueblo, NM
