2012 Blue Mountain Forests WBP Arboreta

Project: Blue Mountain Forests Whitebark Pine Arboreta

Agency/Forest or Park/District: Suitable Seed Orchards on the Wallowa-Whitman, Umatilla, and Malheur National Forests

Project coordinator:  Robyn Darbyshire

Contact:  Robyn Darbyshire, rdarbyshire@fs.fed.us, 541-523-1255

Cooperators

Sabine Mellman-Brown – USFS, Baker OR; Andy Bower – USFS Geneticist; Matt Horning – USFS Geneticist

Source of funding /amount

FHP: $6,000

Supplemental funding: $10,000 from Researcher and other cooperators in kind.

Dates of restoration efforts

Screening of seed orchards and determination of site preparation needs will occur in 2012. Site preparation will also occur in 2012. Rootstock will be grown in 2012 and 2013. Grafting would occur in 2013 and 2014.

Objectives

Identify seed orchards with suitable climate, soils, and space on the Blue Mountain national forests for establishment of whitebark pine arboreta, do site preparation as needed, and grow rootstock for grafting.

Acres/ha treated  N/A

Methods

Seed orchards on the three forests will be screened to determine their suitability for establishment of whitebark pine arboreta and to determine site preparation needs. Whitebark pine rootstock will be produced to allow for grafting of selected whitebark pine scion from the wild. The goal would be to establish arboreta representing whitebark pine from the major population areas in the Blue Mountains, using an approach similar to that of the Deschutes National Forest (they have established several whitebark pine arboreta). We will be able to collaborate with other whitebark pine projects in the area that have identified trees without blister rust.

In 2012, we obtained some whitebark pine seedlings from the Dorena Tree Improvement Center.  Experience in establishing arboreta on the Deschutes National Forest has shown that whitebark pine can be fairly picky about site conditions, we planted these “test” seedlings in three seed orchards that were selected for their relatively cold or high elevation characteristics.  We felt that these characteristics would represent the most suitable areas for whitebark pine survival.  When we checked survival in 2013, it was very low.  We will repeat that test planting in 2014.  We will repeat that test planting in 2014 in these orchards and we have identified one additional orchard to test.

Dorena Tree Improvement Center is also growing the grafting rootstock for us and that will be delivered in 2015.  These seedlings are being grown from Wallowa-Whitman National Forest seed collections.

Outcome

The project is not complete.  We received notification that the project had been funded shortly before the start of the field season and had to scramble to integrate it into our program of work.  We had heard earlier that the project was not funded and we were not expecting other funding to come through.  The primary person identified to carry out the work was severely underfunded in FY12, and to pay her salary, she had to commit to several other projects that required her to travel to other forests during the main field season.  She was also accepted into the National Advanced Silviculture Program (NASP), and this further limited the time she had available to work on the project.  To date, we have identified likely seed orchards and another non-seed orchard location and planted several rootstock trees on each site to evaluate survival and suitability of the site for future use as a whitebark pine arboretum.

While talking with other forests that have established some arboreta, we learned that the process of identifying suitable sites was not as clear as we had hoped.  The other forests shared that they had higher than expected levels of mortality on sites they had chosen, and they suggested that we first spend some time evaluating the sites by planting whitebark pine there and seeing how well it survives.

In 2012, we obtained some whitebark pine seedlings from the Dorena Tree Improvement Center.  Experience in establishing arboreta on the Deschutes National Forest has shown that whitebark pine can be fairly picky about site conditions, we planted these “test” seedlings in three seed orchards that were selected for their relatively cold or high elevation characteristics.  We felt that these characteristics would represent the most suitable areas for whitebark pine survival.  When we checked survival in 2013, it was very low.  We will repeat that test planting in 2014 in these orchards and we have identified one additional orchard to test.

Dorena Tree Improvement Center is also growing the grafting rootstock for us and that will be delivered in 2015.  These seedlings are being grown from Wallowa-Whitman National Forest seed collections.

We will continue to monitor the surviving seedlings from the 2012 and 2014 plantings as well as the survival of the grafting rootstock planted in 2015.  We will be collecting the scion for grafting in the spring of 2015 so Dorena can do the grafting before we plant the trees.  Once the grafted trees are planted, we will continue to monitor their survival.

While the process is somewhat slow, it is an important step in establishing whitebark pine arboreta for the Malheur, Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman National Forests that will help us preserve phenotypes that are not infected with blister rust.