Our Foundation is in Research
Why Are Virginia Trees Your Best Choice?
The Virginia Department of Forestry has been growing seedlings for Virginia landowners for 94 years. When you put your money in the ground in the form of seedlings, you need to start with the best stock available; stock suited for Virginia soils and climate. The cultural practices that we use in growing seedlings in our seedbeds are based on more than 40 years of research and experience in quality production.
VDOF offers nearly 40 species of bare-root seedlings that have been grown at one of Virginia’s two State Forestry Centers: the Augusta Forestry Center, near Waynesboro, and the Garland Gray Forestry Center near Littleton. Our seedlings are sold directly from the seedbed without replanting, and seedling age is indicated with 1-0, 2-0 and 3-0 (one-, two- and three-year-old).
In addition to the wide selection of bare-root seedlings, we also offer specialty seedling packs and seed mixtures suitable for various wildlife habitats, use in wetland areas and for erosion control.
Cooperative Efforts
The Virginia State Nurseries are proud to be a member of The Cooperative Tree Improvement Program at North Carolina State University. The mission of the Cooperative is to economically increase forest productivity through the genetic manipulation of loblolly pine populations. Enhanced productivity through breeding, selecting and deploying superior loblolly pine families is a major goal of the Cooperative.
- Due to the cooperative sharing of genetic material, all of the best families that are suitable for Virginia are in our program.
- Selections have continuously placed extra emphasis on properties desirable for solid wood products (straightness, crown characteristics).
- Some families from other provenances and cold hardiness zones either fail in Virginia or perform erratically.
Advantages of Our Genetically Improved Loblolly Pine
- Improved genetics for fast-growing, straight and disease resistant seedlings.
- Increased growth and yield over unimproved seedlings.
- Increased profits from improved growth.
- Our seedlings go completely dormant for shipping, and fully dormant seedlings withstand shipment and planting significantly better than non-dormant seedlings.
- We top clip our seedlings, which controls the shoot/root ratio contributing to excellent survival rates.
- Pioneered pales weevil treatment.
Benefits of Top Clipping Seedlings
Top clipping seedlings is a nursery practice that makes a big difference in seedling performance. This practice controls the shoot/root ratio, which is the single biggest reason for good survival. Our research in Virginia has shown repeatedly that seedlings with a shoot/root ratio of more than 2:1 will not survive as consistently well as seedlings with a shoot/root ratio of less than 2:1.
Importance of Dormancy
Our seedlings go completely dormant. This is very important for storage, shipping and planting. Fully-dormant seedlings can be stored for two to three months without survival loss and can withstand shipment and planting much better than non-dormant seedlings. Virginia is at the northern end of the loblolly growing range. Garland Gray Forestry Center participated in a cold hardiness and dormancy study as a member of the Auburn University Nursery Cooperative. As expected, this study showed that the more northern loblolly families are much more cold hardy. Our families are quicker to go dormant and slower to come out of dormancy. Southern families react much faster to a warm spell and tend to come out of dormancy sooner. Due to warmer weather, seedlings grown farther south frequently never go completely dormant.
Pales Weevil Treatments
Pales weevil feeds on the stems of pine seedlings, primarily in newly-cutover stands being replanted. This insect can have a devastating effect on seeding survival, ultimately causing high mortality in newly-planted pine stands.
To successfully guard against pales weevil, the stem must be treated with permethrin. Studies resulted in a viable application method, and VDOF pioneered the use of this technique and treatment. VDOF’s treatment method fully covers the stem, treating the most vulnerable part of the seedling. Simply applying permethrin over the top of seedlings with a three-point hitch sprayer is not effective because the chemical does not reach and cover the stem.
Virginia’s Best Genetics
Our research program continues to improve growth and yield performance by breeding the "best with the best." We can differentiate among our best genetics and rate them for growth and yield perfomance. This year's offerings cover a range of performance and price.
“Virginia’s Best”
The best producer of all our families is being sold as “Virginia’s Best." This is the best producing open pollinated seedling within our seed orchard. Open-pollinated seedlings are the offspring of a high-yielding female fertilized by pollen from the wind-blown pollen mix in the air from surrounding pine trees. When compared to the commercial checklot, these seedlings could show up to a 62 percent growth gain.
Availability: Very limited supply of Virginia’s Best this season.
Controlled Mass Pollination (CMP)
This seed lot comes from isolating female reproductive organs on high-quality trees and fertilizing them with pollen from a known source. Therefore, when seed collection occurs, we can be assured that we know the true parents of the offspring. This year, we have 10 different crosses, which produced about 32 pounds of loblolly seed. The ratings for this seed lot are estimated to be 55 percent growth gain above unimproved seedlings.
Availability: Very limited. About 32 pounds of seed were available to produce this season's offering.
Elite
This is a mix of seed from several different families but still from our best families. Ultimately, we have taken out the best producer, which is being sold as “Virginia’s Best”, and included all other Elite within this seed lot. The ratings for these seedlings averages out to around 45 percent growth gain.
Availability: Limited. This year's crop is about 1.5 million seedlings, compared with 500,000 seedlings available in 2010.
Premium
The Premium seed lot comes from a mixture of a larger group of trees, of course excluding the next-best genetics. Our Premium seedlings will be our largest offering of the crop, and we project to have around 14 million available for Virginia landowners this year. The potential for our Premium seedlings is about a 35 percent growth gain above unimproved stock.
Availability: Good.
Third Cycle Orchard Mix
Tree improvement is an ongoing process, and our third cycle of breeding will result in higher quality seedling just as the second cycle of breeding was an improvement over the first cycle. Our third cycle orchards consist of breeding crosses and selections that were developed from the best second generation parent trees and new parents that weren't yet avaiolable when the secong cycle orchard was established. Our third cycle loblolly orchards aren't fully mature yet, so only a few parent trees are able to produce seed. They do so in limited quantities. Although our very best selections in the third cycle orchard aren't producing seed yet, the mix of seed we collect from this orchard has shown an approximately 30 percent growth gain over unimproved seedlings.
Availability: Good.
Second Generation Orchard Mix
Our research program continues to improve growth and yield performance by breeding the "best with the best." We can differentiate among our best genetics. Our second generation seedlings are the families left after pulling out our higher quality producers. They grow better than what we offered about five years ago, but they represent our lowest level of growth and yield productivity. Our research for this seed indicates a 25 percent growth gain over unimproved seedlings.
Availability: Good.
More Information
Need more information on genetically improved seedlings? Read the article published by the Virginia Department of Forestry Research Team.
Last modified: Wednesday, 18-Jan-2012 08:54:30 EST
