PLUM CREEK SEEDLING NURSERIES: GROWING VALUE BY THE MILLIONS

You can’t get your boots too dirty wandering the rows of Plum Creek’s newest seedling nursery, River Bend, which is located on the grounds of the Company’s Pearl River nursery in Mississippi. The River Bend nursery, which began growing seedlings in 2008, is unique among Plum Creek’s southern nurseries. Instead of bare-root seedlings, River Bend produces containerized seedlings grown in re-usable Styrofoam blocks on raised pads. Yet unlike the Company’s containerized seedling operations in Cottage Grove, Ore., and Pablo, Mont., it does so without greenhouses. 

“We had our first crop at River Bend last year, and it was a good one, more than 4 million seedlings,” says Doug Sharp, manager of forest regeneration. “We’ll increase that to about 5 million this year.” That makes River Bend’s production twice that of the Montana nursery and about half that of Oregon’s. In all, Plum Creek produces 120 to 130 million seedlings each year.

The work at River Bend is not as mechanized as at other southern nursery operations. It takes only one full-time employee to run it. Still, the annual cycle is basically the same. The germination of predominately longleaf and loblolly pines takes place in April or May. The seedlings may be top-pruned as they grow to encourage sturdy root networks. Extraction from the containers begins in October and finishes by late February. The Styrofoam blocks are washed after seedling extraction and used again for the next crop.

Meeting market demand

Not many of River Bend’s seedlings end up in Plum Creek forests, though. Most are sold in the external market, often to small landowners. Because they’re more drought-tolerant than bare-root seedlings, they can offer a longer planting season. “Plum Creek continues to plant more containerized seedlings in the South each year,” says Doug, “and the River Bend operation has come along at the right time to meet this increasing demand.”

Hardwoods are another small but growing part of the Company’s seedling business. Several Plum Creek nurseries have grown some hardwood seedlings, but the Pearl River facility grows nearly two dozen different species, including mulberry, crabapple, oak, and persimmon. The hardwoods are sold as bare-root stock, and shipped from late fall through March for planting. Doug notes, “We’ve had good market acceptance for hardwoods.” In fact, Pearl River grew 1.3 million hardwood seedlings in 2008.

Market acceptance counts, since nearly half of the seedlings grown by Plum Creek nurseries are sold to others — just another way Plum Creek is literally growing value.