It’s Never Too Early to Plan for Next Year

As the planting season winds down, ArborGen’s sowing season begins and our nurseries have been completing our field prep, and sowing will start soon. Seedling inventories for next year are set, and we’re gearing up for another busy year.

At ArborGen, we’ve been meeting with landowners and consultants about their plans and goals. Now is a great time to call your Reforestation Advisor to determine the seedlings to meet your reforestation needs. With many areas of the southeast experiencing severe weather events last year, we expect demand to be high. In fact, we are already committing significant portions of our crop. If you’re a landowner, forestry consultant, or tree planter, be sure to secure your seedlings soon to get the best families for your area or provenance.

During the 2019 growing season, all of our Piedmont Loblolly families were sold out by early Summer, and customers were scrambling to find any Longleaf seedlings available. The past few years have seen a south-wide shortage of Longleaf pine seedlings, and a shortage of Loblolly seedlings for specific areas. As for hardwoods, our oak inventory was depleted well before last Fall, and we sold out of many of the more desirable oaks for landowners. Make sure you are able to get the seedlings you need by making your plans now.

Contact your ArborGen Reforestation Advisor to discuss what you need to produce the best forest for your future.

by Carol Denhof, President,
The Longleaf Alliance

The Longleaf Alliance is focused on our mission of ensuring the sustainable future of the Longleaf ecosystem through partnerships, landowner assistance, and science-based education and outreach. Since our formation in 1995, education and outreach has been the cornerstone of our programs, and we continue to be the hub of the Longleaf partnership wheel that includes state and federal agencies, research institutions, natural resource professionals, NGOs, universities, and private landowners. We also make significant impacts in the areas of habitat improvement, rare species restoration, Longleaf restoration, and land protection across the southeastern region.

In 2019, The Longleaf Alliance reached nearly 250,000 people using a variety of outreach tools, provided 576 technical assists, supported planting of over 1 million Longleaf seedlings, assisted with burning on over 600,000 acres, restored rare species in South Carolina and Florida, and working with our partners, protected over 15,000 acres along the Savannah River. It was a great year, and we are on track to exceed these numbers in 2020. Using our mission as a guide, I’m excited to be steering the ship forward into this celebration year and shaping the organization to endure and thrive for the next 25 years and more!

This is an exciting year for The Longleaf Alliance as it is the organization’s 25th year of working to bring back the Longleaf pine to the southeastern landscape. In this Silver Jubilee year, we will be taking the time to pause and reflect on not only the accomplishments of The Longleaf Alliance but also the incredible strides that the entire Longleaf community has made in efforts to reach our common Longleaf restoration goals. Nurseries that provide Longleaf pine seedlings for restoration are a key component in the effort and we are beyond grateful for the Conservation Partnerships that we have formed with nursery companies like ArborGen. Without our dedicated Longleaf producing nurseries, Longleaf forests could not be restored. These nurseries are essential for providing seedlings for The Longleaf Alliance’s tree planting projects – we aim to support planting of over 3 million Longleaf seedlings this year. Thank you ArborGen for all you do to support Longleaf restoration!

Follow us online at www.longleafalliance.org to maintain a pulse on all things Longleaf!

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