Winter activities

With the outside sequoias dormant for the next few months it is time to focus on in-door activities. Before that, a short update on current winter conditions. After a few inches of snow and temperature dipping into teens Fahrenheit, the weather bounced up to above freezing. It has been steady about 27-32 at night and 40-50 during the day for close to two weeks now. The forecast calls for 38-55F next week. This is quite warm for second week of December. In general this is what I found about longer term outlook for USA this winter:

Dec-Feb 2015-16 Outlook.

If this pattern holds then sequoias outside should feel quite comfortable.

With sun getting lower and lower every day, here is a flurry of activities inside:

Sequoia nursery Dec 2015

The picture above shows diversification of the species in my basement. Most of the seedlings live in unprotected containers while very young sequoias that undergo germination in small plastic containers are kept inside a cage impervious to mice.

From left to right in the room:

Norway Spruce, Blue spruce and one Doug-fir. Dec 2015

Norway Spruce, Blue spruce and one Doug-fir: all seedlings are about 2 months old. Doug-fir is by far the biggest species at the similar age.

Thuia plicata, Meyer's spruce, Fraser Fir, Bold Cypress, Giant Sequoia and Ponderosa Pine. Dec 2015

A great variety of species in these four-gallon containers. The Thuia plicata sample was brought from the Olympic National Park trip last August. It grew substantially since then. Bold Cypress is from my neighbor Richard Horak who gave them to me after his two 30 year old trees seeded them without human help last Spring. I keep one under the lights and 5 more are in cold storage in the garage. The sequoia on this patch is from the 200-range seedling from the Fall of 2013, making it two year old about now. It is apparently one of the less successful ones from that crop but it remains in good health. Ponderosa Pine that arrived via mail did not fare well. Out of 9 samples only 3 are currently surviving. This is one of them. I built a small chicken-wire cage to keep it somewhat straight. All samples of both Fraser Fir and Meyer's spruce received from the same source as Ponderosa are doing fine. Two of each were planted in these 4-gallon containers.

Fraser Fir, Meyer's Spruce and Ponderosa Pine. Dec 2015

These are more of the same, showing some surviving Ponderosa and a few ones on the way out. Fraser Fir in these quart size containers are doing very well with a bright green bunches of needles appearing in the last 3-4 weeks. Meyer's spruce so far is showing no signs of getting worse but at the same time very little is happening. Only perhaps on two I can see some new needles growing on the top but nowhere nearly in the same spectacular fashion as Fraser is doing.

Giant sequoia, Meyer's Spruce, Sitka Spruce and Norway Spruce. Dec 2015

These are 10 mail ordered sequoias, 2-3 surviving Sitka and one random Norway Spruce (will consolidate later). All sequoias are doing fine with no signs of change since the order in August 2015. No change is great in my mind. They need to survive till next Spring.

Blue Spruce. Dec 2015

Here is the remainder of Blue Spruce. For some reason all Blue Spruce seedlings appear deformed. Their stems are all crooked and near the ground. I was going to call them dead for many weeks but they remain to grow albeit in this strange form.

Giant sequoia, White Pine, Western Hemlock and Doug-fir. Dec 2015

This is the main germination pool hiding inside mice resistant cage. About 80 six-inch containers started with 3 seeds each. 13 green seedlings are from the older patch that was devastated by a mouse. The rest were re-seeded three weeks ago. Surprisingly few (3) have germinated so far and those that did do not appear to have bright purple loop characteristic for healthy seedlings. They look pale brown and have not managed to come close to shedding the casings.

One (of 100) surviving Western Hemlock is still doing okay but not spectacular. Three White Pines also managed to survive. For one reason or another white pine has failed to establish so far. Finally, Doug-fir after long hibernation started to make significant gains. Some samples exhibit similar condition to what I described above about Blue Spruce with crooked stems but four, including three in this picture have taken off. From the original expansion program started in August, these are the tallest species.

Norway Spruce, Pacific Silver Fir (Abies amabilis), Subalpine Fir (Abies Lasiocarpa) and Western Hemlock.

A few more Norway spruce seedlings, all doing poorly but at least not dead yet. Stems remain thin, needles are dark green and also somewhat thin.

Finally, three sets of newly planted seeds for germination. All these were kept in a fridge at 0C for 3 months. Silver fir fared worst of all species with zero surviving out of 100. Western Hemlock did also poorly with only one surviving out of 100. This is another try with about 20 seeds, 3 per container. For Subalpine Fir this is its first try. 

First snow of 2016 winter

First snow has fallen in Iowa.

About 6 inches fell last night. The snow is fluffy but wet. It completed the wire mesh structures very nicely around sequoias.

Larger sequoias had some snow falling inside the protective fence:

Preparations for the winter 2015-2016

With the growing season over it's time to get ready for the cold Iowa winter.

Slightly more seedlings will spend the winter outside than the last winter. Most of them will enter this winter much stronger than in 2014-15. Out of twenty five seedlings, eighteen will see their second test by cold. It is pretty remarkable that out of twenty in 2014-15, there were so many survivors.

The last winter was pretty regular for an Iowa winter. Slightly higher temperatures for most of the winter but with  a very cold February that pushed the winter overall below normal.  Slightly less snow than normal fell last winter but the big snow storm coincided with the deep freeze in February, which helped with the tree protection.

The 2015-16 winter outlook is dominated by strong El Nino predicting more snow and above average temperatures late Fall and at least early winter. Later winter may see some cold spells. Sounds like a repeat of last winter but with more snow.

Last year the seedlings were all small enough to be buried either completely or to 3/4 of the height in snow. Some of the taller ones like #15 and #34 got severely damaged. #15 is a remarkable survivor that bounced back from the loss of the main trunk. #34 did not bounce back as strong but (with the main trunk surviving) added just 45% (9") during this growing season.  It's a far cry from the snow-covered #33 that tripled in size from May through October of 2015 from 10" to 32".

The biggest sequoia threat is windburn. To fight the windburn menace all sequoias will be protected with dual defense lines. The first one starts on the bottom with a heavy dose of mulch added around each tree with a diameter of at least 3 feet across. Older and bigger trees will get as much as 6 feet across of 6-8" of mulch. The second and most drastic line is a fence around each tree. The bigger trees are getting a cone shaped teepee made out of wire with a layer of burlap on the outside.

I do feel like I am over protecting the trees especially given the moderate winter outlook. To that effect I am leaving three largest trees somewhat exposed to the elements by making a cylinder wind breaker rather than making a complete cover.

 The smaller trees will be getting plant protector foam buckets:

It was devastating to see a beautiful 9-feet tall sequoia in Iowa being destroyed by the 2013-14 winter in Fairfield. I believe that Hardy Jim over-protected his sequoia in the first two winters. Once it became not feasible to protect it suffered a terrible blow from an especially severe winter. It might have been just the wrong sequence of unfortunate events or otherwise an incredibly great tree may still be living in Iowa.

Update on seed germinations. All Giant Sequoias died. Probable culprits include early exposure to hard sun followed by over-watering and adding liquid fertilizer for the last three surviving samples. All had damage of the stem near the ground that turned black and withered. A batch of 50 new sequoias is started, unstratified. The glass container with plastic lid was treated with Clorox to eliminate hostile agents prior to placing paper filter with seeds.

Blue spruce seedlings continue to be green but look thin and unhealthy. Doug-fir seedlings are going very strong. A mouse destroyed half of the white pine patch, the rest are not getting from casings yet. Sitka spruce doing fairly well for the surging samples. They are getting stronger but the rate was somewhat low in 10-15% range. Western hemlock has only 2 pretty weak seedlings remaining. Everything else is dead in the germinated from seeds crop.

And finally, a remarkable find: Arid Arborist is trying a similar project in Indiana!

End of 2015 growing season

And the wrap up for the growing this year.

The table:

And all tracked tree mugshots: (pictures from last weekend)

#33:

#31:

#34:

#38:

#104:

#72:

#63:

#15:

#118:

#24:

#39:

#71:

#112:

#215:

#213:

#212:

#214:

#65:

#221:

#208:

#207:

#222:

#219:

#217:

#220:

Bio-diversity

Biodiversification is ramping up. Giant Sequoias will have fir-ry neighbors for sure.

It has been almost two months since the trip to Washington State when the new conifer species started to arrive to Iowa. It started with the seeds of some exotic (for Iowa) trees and then slowly expanded to both seeds and seedlings of more common ever greens. In general, West Coast natives did poorly either with germination or with first few week seedling survival.

Pacific Silver Fir had only 2 germinations out of unstratified 100. It took over 6 week to germinate and both died within two weeks.

Western Hemlock had a decent germination rate of about 30% but due to poor water level control only 3 are surviving from 100.

Sitka Spruce germination was very good, close to 90%. 27 out of 100 are currently standing.

Washington Douglas-Fir did reasonably well with 90% germinations and 16 out of 100 currently surviving. Doug fir surviving samples all look much sturdier than any other species started in August and all 16 were transferred to the 6" containers at this time.

Giant sequoia batch of 100 did uncharacteristically poor. Out of about 20% germinated only 3 survived to be transferred to 6" containers. The most dramatic loss of the seedlings happened when the tray was left outside in direct sun for one day. Both high temperature and sunburn wiped dozens of seedlings of both giant sequoia and others.

Several Blue spruces were also germinated. The clear winner is the one from Arizona, Apache with the total 35 surviving seedlings out of 50. Gemination rate was 95+% and it appeared to tolerate direct sun better than any other trees.

Oct 4, 2015. Doug-fir, Giant sequoias and some of the Blue spruce from Arizona. 

Blue spruce from Colorado Rio Grande did well with surviving 21 out of 50 on similar 85-90% germination rate.

New Mexico Blue spruce had much lower germination of about 30% and with only 7 out of 50 currently surviving.

Now moving to the staple Iowa conifer, Norway Spruce (Picea abies). 90% germination with over half currently surviving out of 100. The jury is still out on this one because planting from coffee filter into starter cells started only on Sept 25, 2015 and many seedlings are yet to fully emerge above ground level.

At the same time as Norway spruce, a 100 batch of unstratified White Pine  (Pinus strobus) from Wisconsin were placed on familiar coffee filter substrate. Only 2 germinated so far while all Norway spruces has been processed already (planted or discarded).

October 4, 2015. Norway spruce, Western hemlock and Blue spruce from New Mexico seedlings.

Now moving onto an even more aggressive plan.

With the new land purchased I decided to start acquiring some older seedlings to be planted next Spring. To that effect four batches were purchased through Internet, all from 2013 planting season: 10x Giant Sequoias, 7x Ponderosa pine, 9x Meyer's spruce, 9x Fraser fir.

October 4, 2015. 2 year old Giant sequoia seedlings purchased from Welker's Grove Nursery at giant-sequoia.com. These are 2013 crop. 

October 4, 2015. Ponderosa pine purchased from Richard Lubbers at Nurseryman.com. These are 2 year old seedlings that arrived as a part of the "variety pack".

October 4, 2015. 2 year old Meyer's spruce from nurseryman.com

October 4, 2015. 2 year old Fraser fir from nurseryman.com. 

Finally, 8x 5 year old Norway spruce trees were purchased from Richard Horak.

October 4, 2015. 5 year old Norway spruce seedlings

The idea behind this expansion is to build a protective environment for the original giant sequoias that started from seeds in 2012 in Iowa. It's unlikely that Sitka spruce or Western hemlock would survive in Iowa while Norway spruce, Fraser fir and other Iowa-regular spices would serve as a windbreak and shading for the first few years of Giant sequoia growth. At least that's the plan.

Many sleeping giants

Germination of the expansion phase is in full swing. Some seeds pop like crazy, some not at all. Here is an account of last five days.

The other table:

A lot of data here, but here is a synopsis. The most prolific species from germination standpoint was Blue Spruce from Arizona. 86% seeds popped seed casings in seven days. This is without stratification. Very impressive. Same species but from Colorado is not far behind with 76%. New Mexico samples are germinating slower, in line with most other species.

However, none of the germinated Blue Spruce seeds are yet to show any starter leaves from any of the Blue Spruce samples.

The leader of the green leaves is Giant Sequoia! A respectable number of seeds germinated, 20%, but the interesting part is that 5% already free of the casings.

Doug-fir and Sitka Spruce despite different methods of germination (Sitka directly in peat moss while D-f on paper) show very similar results both have about 20% casing breach and 3-4% stand with green leaves.

Western Hemlock shows a respectable 28% casing breach but no green leaves stand free.

Finally, one species remain stubbornly dormant. Pacific Silver fir did not show any signs of casing breach on filter paper nor in peat moss with 50 samples in each method. Another 100 seeds are stored in the fridge at 0C at this time.

Second franchise

#213 has moved.

Susan, who commented on some posts of this blog, took possession of one two-year sequoia, #213.

#213 has been growing rapidly this season adding 8.5" of height or 200% to its 2014 growing season height:

Susan gave me the County Soil Survey. I found out that all locations for currently planted trees belong to the type 163 with minor variations: