It¹s cone season at the nursery

This year the Lewis A. Moran Reforestation Center is buried in conesŠabout 9–10,000 bushels of them! Bumper crops like this are unusual; this is the second largest crop seen in 20 years.

While most people know that the state nursery produces seedlings, the behind-the-scenes work is much more interesting and involved.

The nursery's challenge is to have a 10 year supply of seeds for each of the 80 California seed zones. That means staff have to keep track of how much seed is needed for each zone, then commission climbers to gather cones at the right time. If a cone is picked too early, the seed won¹t perform; if picked too late, the cone will open and seeds will fall out and be lost.

The seeds are gathered and placed in special bags pioneered by the Center. These bags, made of the same open mesh material used in baseball caps, allows air to flow through freely. The bags are turned each day until the cones open. Then the fun beginsŠ

The nursery has numerous interesting and mysterious machines whose sole purpose is to separate the seeds from the cones and other debris. There are kilns, separators, tumblers, even a dewinger ³to get de wings off² pine seeds.

Seeds are further processed for quality. Batches are x-rayed to see which seeds appear viable. Air separators separate the good from bad seed by weight—a tricky operation that varies from batch to batch and throughout the day as the moisture changes. It may take 6–7 tries to get a good separation.

The final seed is stored in the Seed Bank, a cold storage unit set at 0ºF and 5–9% moisture content. Basically, the seeds are put into hibernation.

Small samples of each batch are then tested periodically to see how well they germinate. These seeds are taken out of storage, dormancy is broken by chilling and other means, then they go through a ³spring² in the germinator to see if they are still viable.

Careful recordkeeping is vital for this operation¹s success. Information on exactly where the seed comes from, quality characteristics, and germination records ensure that landowners get the high-quality seedlings they require.