Forest Nursery Tour

The REALOregon group had the opportunity to visit one of the Weyerhaeuser Forest Nurseries located in Aurora. The rows upon rows of one year and two year mixed species seedlings filled the grounds that once belonged to some of the early settlers of the area. Douglas Fir dominated the fields with vibrant growth.

One of the nuances of growing vigorous seedlings has to do with forcing the root systems of each of the seedlings. This is done by cutting the roots below the tap-root while the seedling is growing. A long thin blade is dragged underground at the right angle and depth as a tractor pulls it down the row of seedlings. One small error in the placement of the blade can cut too low to be effective or too high causing damage and death to the seedling.

Root cutting happens twice before the seedlings are ready to be ‘lifted’ or raised from the beds and hauled to the handling room to be counted, bundled and packed before stacking into cold storage while the seedlings await shipment for planting.

The group moved up the road a couple of miles to see rows of seedlings in the process of being lifted. The machine that was hooked on the back of a large tractor, scooped under the row of seedlings to bring them out of the dirt bed. The machine vibrates the excess soil loose around the plants so workers can walk behind  to bunch and place into totes that fill the back of a large trailer. The trailer filled with totes hauls the seedlings to a cement floor warehouse space so the trees can be counted, bundled and placed in boxes or bags.

The boxes or bags are then palletized and moved into cold storage at the other end of the facility. The cold storage space is as large as the work area to bag and box the seedlings and holds the trees first at a refrigerated temperature at one end of the cold storage. For trees that need to be held a longer period, they are moved after being chilled to the colder section and frozen. Millions and millions of trees can be sitting in cold storage awaiting to be shipped out the thousands of Weyerhaeuser cleared sites throughout  Washington, Western Canada, and Oregon.

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I am so pleased to announce that MaryJane Nordgren has made her new book available to the public! Click here for your copy of Nandria’s war.