11 Nov, 2013 Author: administrator

Cones at Eel River (photo credit:Alex Hackman)

As I mentioned in my last post, we will need over 8,000 2-3 year old Atlantic White Cedar trees to be ready for planting on the Tidmarsh/Beaver Dam Brook Restoration site in 2014. In preparation, we set a goal of collecting 20,000 Atlantic White Cedar cones this fall.

Before launching into the collection adventure, you may well ask how we arrived at 20,000 cones? For the record, we estimated that 20,000 cones should provide a minimum of 60,000 and perhaps considerably more. Assuming a minimum germination rate of 20%, which given my optimism seems abysmally low, 20,000 cones should provide sufficient seed to germinate 10,000 seedlings.

20,000 cones, when we considered collection however, sounded like a very big number. David Gould, Director of the Town's Department of Marine and Environmental Affairs, agreed that we could collect at least some of these cones from the young Atlantic White Cedar trees at Eel River. We therefore planned a volunteer collection activity for November 1 and invited 13 hardy souls to join us in the collection effort. The group included local volunteers, staff members at DER (Department of Ecological Restoration), Irina Kadis and Alexey Zinovjev of Salicicola who are heading up the germination effort, and Anthony Reiber of Northeast Native Habitats who will be growing many of the seedlings we germinate in the spring until we are ready to plant them in 2016.

Alas, the weather forecast was not favorable for this group expedition.Already on Monday, weather.com predicted 80% likelihood of rain for friday. This did not deter me from sending out an email on Tuesday with details for Friday’s meet up. However the forecast did prompt the more knowledgeable members of our group to ask me how I was planning dry the cones, noting that mold was the number one cause of reduced seed viability.By Halloween night, the prediction for Friday included not only 100% chance of rain but also unusually high winds.At this point, not wanting our volunteers to navigate the weather and potentially be rained out, I canceled the collection activity. Thanks to all of you for your willingness to help out!

On Friday morning, the air was sultry; rain was imminent but had not arrived. Alex, Evan and I checked the meeting point in case someone had missed the cancelation email. No one was waiting, so we drove to a spot that offered closer access to the entrance to the fenced off portion of the Eel River site. As we made our way in through the fence and across the former restored bog lands, the pre-storm lighting enhanced this vibrant landscape. From the start of our ramble through the cedars, we were impressed with the abundance of cone; however we quickly discovered that ripeness from tree to tree w as far from uniform. Alex led our expedition; quickly pressing past trees with less ripe cones, he was first to arrive at a stand with cones that were perfectly matured to purple brown with a tinge of blue. This clump of trees offered a bonanza!

Amazingly, the rain held off for two and a half hours, only starting once we had returned to the cars with a half a bag of cones, each one about the size of a pepper corn. Once home, we approximated a cone count. We figured 1,000 cones filled a cup and measured 20 cups from our collective effort. We set the cones out on screens to dry. 8 days later, we separated seed from cones. All in all, we had 11 oz. of seed without crushing the cones! According to Irina’s estimate we had harvested over 136,000 seeds!

The next step was to stratify the seed to prepare them for germination in the spring. We did this by dividing the seed in small batches of approximately 200 seeds each; these were placed in bags partially filled with slightly moist peat, sealed and placed in the refrigerator until spring when we will be better able to evaluate the seeds of our labor.

Once the seedlings germinate, we will again call on a cadre of volunteers to help pot them. Of course we hope whatever day we pick the weather will cooperate.