Starting Seed Orchard Project
In March 2004, in collaboration with Kirk Hinson (Southern Seed Company) and George Gallagher (Berry College Animal Sciences), we initiated a seed orchard project intended to generate Mountain Longleaf seeds via grafted clones of our oldest longleaf trees. Our intent is to preserve the genetic diversity present in those old trees and to generate seeds for use in our own and other regional longleaf restoration projects. We thank the U.S. Forest Service for use of their scalping plow. So far, the 200 plus root-stock plants are doing well on about 2 fenced acres. Grafting experiments with previously established root-stock plants will begin this winter, with help from Andrea Jones and Marlin Cox (Berry College Horticultural Greenhouses and Animal Sciences program).