2013 Glacier NP WBP Plus Tree Pollen Cone & Scion Collection
Project: Glacier National Park Whitebark Pine Plus Tree Pollen Cone and Scion Collection for Rust-resistance Screening, Mission Mountains/Glacier National Park Seed Zone
Agency/Forest or Park/District: Glacier National Park, Montana
Project coordinator: Dawn LaFleur
Contact: Dawn LaFleur, Glacier National Park P.O. Box 128 West Glacier, MT 59936, 406-888-7864, dawn_lafleur@nps.gov
Cooperators
Mary Frances Mahalovich, USFS Moscow FSL, will supervise rust resistance studies to be carried out at the USFS Coeur d’Alene Nursery.
Source of funding /amount
FHP: $3,000
Supplemental funding: $12,500 from NPS FLREA (NPS Fee Program money – Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act) funds.
Dates of restoration efforts: Tried to collect pollen cones mid-July when visiting trees to attaché verbenone packets. But discovered the pollen had already gone. Will try to go earlier next year.
Objectives
Cage and collect pollen cones and scion from 4 plus trees identified by Mary Frances Mahalovich, USFS Moscow FSL and submit them to the rust-resistance study
Acres/ha treated
Collect pollen cones and scion from 4 plus trees
Methods
GNP staff will climb the four trees assigned in early July to collect pollen cones and in the fall when the trees are dormant to collect scion material. The four trees are located in Preston Park (Hudson drainage), Rising Wolf and Triple Divide trail (Missouri drainage), and Numa Ridge (Columbia drainage). Environmental Compliance for whitebark pine restoration, and related work has been completed and is documented in Categorical Exclusion, GLAC-01-057. An Interagency Agreement has been established with the USFS Coeur d’Alene Nursery for the rust-resistance study, and it is amended annually to cover the current year’s work.
Several GNP staff will need to be recertified as tree-climbers. Climbers will be assisted by park staff to help with carrying equipment and collect associated data on the trees and the surrounding forest site. The climbers will return in the fall to collect the scion material. The pollen cones and scion material will be shipped immediately after collection in the appropriate manner to the Coeur d’Alene Nursery.
Planting? If so, source of seedlings? Resistance? No
Outcome
The project was not completed this year. Hopefully, we can hit the window correctly next year and are able to collect the pollen in early July. If compliance is complete, then scion material will be collected in October of next year.
We did not meet the objectives for this project this year. Staff did go and check the 4 identified trees at 4 different sites but did not get there in time to collect pollen. We learned that having a 72 hour period for collecting pollen from 4 trees in 4 different sites (3 of which are more than 5 miles from a road) is difficult. We will continue to try. The scion was also not collected because compliance had not been completed. Compliance including the scion collection will be submitted and hopefully completed by fall 2014.
Monitoring since completion of the project N/A
Dates
Plans for future monitoring?
Will outcome meet goals?
Not for this year, but hopefully the information we gained this year will help for success in the future
Future actions/follow up?
We will attempt to get pollen cones in 2014.
Miscellaneous comments
We missed the window for pollen collection but will try again next year. And the scion collection turned out to be more complicated than originally anticipated; compliance review is necessary