Hurricane Helps Pine Cone Collection
Sometimes hurricanes bring good news! One of the several hurricanes that blew through the south actually helped our project by blowing down many longleaf cones at the peak of ripeness in early October. Scrambling to beat the squirrels to the booty, we were able to collect over 300 cones and process several thousand seeds, which will be used in our seedling generation project. Data from these cones will also give us a much better idea of the number of viable seeds per cone within our study stands. Berry students Chris Worrell and John Oliver are working on this project and continue to care for our seed orchard.