04/12/2023
Finished out my first planting job of the season today. I have been planting the #1 reforestation species in northern Michigan - Red Pine / Pinus resinosa - for 31 seasons now.
In that time, seedling quality has actually declined, not improved. These are both 2 year old “seedlings” theoretically, and both of them have serious problems.
The giant seedling on the right would actually perform quite well if planted somewhere near a water hose. But on a windy old field site on a large upland plateau, it stands little chance of surviving a dry spell. It is entirely inappropriate for planting work on large sites where watering thousands of them is not an option.
The tiny seedling on the left is actually already dead; it was shaded out in the seedling bed where the seeds were planted at too high a density for each to grow correctly. The greying needles above a bare stem are a dead giveaway for this problem; the small bud inside the remaining tuft of green was already hollow inside. (The seedling on the right had the opposite problem - given too much space to remain a normal planting size.)
Each of these problematic seedlings arrived in the same bundle of 25. Across this purchase of Red Pine very similar seedlings to these made up about 10% of the lot for each size. Another 1/3 or so of the seedlings have poor chances of surviving the first growing season, generally due to very poor root:shoot ratios which are critical for bare-root evergreens.
In most places in North America, seedlings like these are no longer sold, as plug/container seedlings are orders of magnitude better than these. In Michigan, this type of production stubbornly hangs on because “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Finally next year here another producer will have plug Red Pine seedlings for sale, and these should soon become a thing of the past, hopefully.
Yet I post this picture because these are emblematic of seedling production in the USA the last few years now. At this point, demand for tree seedlings is greater than the supply of tree seeds needed to grow them. And a result is that every seed that germinates now more often gets sold - to someone. Even when they should be discarded, as would have happened in the past to the seedling on the left, or graded appropriately for purchasers who desire the biggest biggest biggest seedling they can get.
These days I routinely have seedlings forced upon me which are simply counted, not graded at all. Agreed upon quality specs are just ignored by producers and suppliers who simply hope you won’t complain.
Seedling quality is a mystery to most people who receive tree seedlings. If you are given extremely questionable seedlings, you must push back on the producers and suppliers of seedlings like this. These actually came through 2 other businesses, who each made a nice profit selling something unlikely to perform as expected. If survival problems appear, suppliers like these will just simply say “well it didn’t rain enough, nothing we could do.”
If you see something, say something, is sound safety advice. If a supplier hands out material like this, say something. Or, keep that water hose handy.
