The Division of Forestry in Fairbanks has been gathering thousands of white spruce cones to provide seeds for future timber sale plantings.
Seeds harvested from the cones are planted in areas where the division has held timber sales. The Alaska Forest Resources and Practices Act requires prompt and adequate reforestation of timber plots.
Those cones collected will be sent to the Division of Agriculture’s Alaska Plant Materials Center for cleaning, conditioning and storage, they will then be dried and tumbled to extract the seeds.
Those seeds extracted must have a germination rate of 70% or better to be accepted by a chosen nursery that specializes in northern climate trees.
Forestry already had a large quantity of seeds in storage dating back 30 years but germination deteriorates over time and Palmer based forester Jeff Graham said he wanted to replenish the seed bank with a fresh crop of Fairbanks seeds.