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:

Expansion

Six new conifer species were added to the mix: Pacific Silver Fir, Subalpine Fir, Western Hemlock, Doug-fir, Sitka Spruce and Blue Spruce. Another batch of Giant sequoias was also started. Here is a summary table for new seeds:

As it can be seen from the table that's quite an expansion. Several batches will be cold stratified while some go directly to germination.

First germination batches started last weekend without any stratification. In one week, there were 3x Western Hemlocks (further WH), 10x Doug-fir (DF), and 2x giant Sequoias (GS). All these were from a batch of 100x each. Pacific Silver fir (PSF) was split into two: one went into germination container on coffee filter paper while the other went to the peat moss starter cells. PSF are much larger than other seeds and a 100x of them would not fit in the container size that was chosen. Neither paper nor peat PSF germinated in the first week. Another 100x went into cold stratification.

WH clearly do not need stratification to germinate despite recommendation that was printed on the package it came with. However, 100x were placed in the fridge for 90 day stratification and Winter 2016 germination.

Doug-fir germinated exceedingly well without stratification as well, with 10% sprouting after only first 7 days.

Subalpine fir is in extremely limited supply based on ONE cone that was collected at Olympic National Park which produced around 150 seeds. 50x were placed in cold stratification and the rest are kept for future use.

Three 50x batches of Blue Spruce (BS) were placed on coffee filter for germination. The difference between them is the source of the collected seeds: New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado.

The selection of the species was not scientific. The species that are expected to do well are Blue Spruce and Doug-fir. Everything else is obviously extremely experimental.

My observed germination rates judging by Giant Sequoias were either on par  or better than expected, which will resulted in almost 700 germinations. Obviously only a small percentage of these will result in viable trees.

To support such a great expansion, the new land acquisition is in progress.

Diversification

Giant Sequoias do not grow just by themselves. They have partner species. Not to be too pedantic about how they grow in their natural habitat but more conifers are coming to live near the giants.

But before we jump to the new additions here is how existing sequoias fared in the last few weeks:

Temperatures held in mid- to upper- 80s with occasional rain. A few days stayed mid-70s.

Top three grew over an inch each with the leader #33 adding two inches and first to reach 30" height. #31 grew just a little faster than #34 and it allowed it to jump to second place. #31 and #38 that were both placed in a large container are doing exceptionally well.

It is too soon to tell direct full sun exposure effect, but after first two months the samples in partial shade did better. #39 in full sun developed some minor disease in the lower branches. Four 2-inch long branches turned glossy black. They were removed and an ample amount of sulfur powder was put on the affected spot. #24 (named Jack), which is now also in full sun at Keith and Tracey's survived first two weeks of transplantation at the expense of massive lower 1/3rd branches turning completely rusty brown. However, the top 1/3rd looks very healthy and managed to add minor but appreciable height and volume.

On to the expansion. My daughter and I spent this summer vacation at Olympic National Park in WA. We had a chance to spend one morning at the Matt Albright Native Plant Nursery. Nursery manager Dave Allen and his staff were extraordinarily gracious with their time showing us around the place. We were also able to re-plnat around 200 plants, mostly Grand Fir (Abies grandis) and some Pacific Red Cedar (Thuja Plicata) from germination cells into three inch seedling containers:

Planting Abies at Albright Native Plant Nursery August 2015

We brought back some seeds and then even more were ordered. more on this in the next post.

First Franchise Established

First sequoia left the house in a permanent move!

Tracey, Keith and their family who live half a mile from my house adopted #24. We moved it today to a full sun location on a gradual slope about 7-10 degrees. The soil is surprisingly very different than at my current location. I will let Keith explain a bit more later on that.

Future location of experiment #24. August 2015.

The location marked with the shovel was chosen for good water flow from higher ground and it is on the path of water runoff from the house roof (behind camera). The slope accelerates more dramatically closer to the neighboring house located on the right. Large 50ft tall conifers can be seen in the background, which was another positive sign of the location.

A 3x3 hole was dug and filled about 4-6" of mix of 2" river cobble and smaller gravel:

Three 2 cu ft bags of potting soil were gradually mixed with with abut 2 cu ft of peat moss, 1 cu ft of river gravel, 1/2 cu ft of cedar mulch, a quart of perlite, lightly sprinkled with garden lime. About 1 cu ft of the original dirt consisting of mostly sand and white clay was also added to fill the volume. Water was added and thoroughly mixed to give consistency of wet sponge twice throughout the procedure.

Once filled to about 2/3 of the container height the two container halves we carefully removed. It required cutting one large root sticking through a drainage hole on container side as it was not allowing smooth removal of the pipe.

Finally a mound around the base was built from smaller river gravel and finally topped off with larger river cobble to provide stable base support:

#34 August 2, 2015. 21.5" at 2 years and 9 months.

Keith and Tracey will add some mulch around the tree and place guards later today.

With some luck this tree will be visible from the main access road if it manages to take hold. I am really excited about this sudden opportunity. I believe it is a good site for sequoia and this new soil will definitely add new data to the experiment. Thank you Keith and Tracey!

Here is a report on the remaining trees.

There was still overall surprisingly slow vertical growth across all samples despite 100% sunshine all week. There were no big breakouts this period like last few weeks. Even #33 slowed down a lot, which was most likely caused by the recent relocation. #24 at the time of the relocation gained one spot but mostly due to #39 losing some minor height.

The sun experiment so far is producing mixed results. Larger #39 lost minimal height and #65 continued its wild dance of the non-leading branches, this time by 0.5" downwards. However, there is now an emerging lead for #65, which will hopefully stabilize and give this sample some direction.

The two young samples in Sun experiment continued to grow steadily with #221 adding very strong 0.75". For a tree of such an age and size it is in fact very good.

Finally, since #24 is now relocated to the full sign, it is also colored with light orange in the table.

The Worst of Fears

The leader #33 was moved from its place of residence over last year into a large pot. The theory that the roots escaped enclosing container and reached deep into the surrounding areas has been decisively confirmed.

Upon extraction from the ground three large roots were clearly exposed. One root in particular was quarter of an inch thick at the point of container exit:

#33 July 31, 2015 12:30PM. Replanting.

Judging by the thickness of the roots, they reached deep into the soil around the container. From previous examples that thick of a root was likely attached to a vast network of smaller roots.

#33 July 31, 2015 replanting. Root detail.

After planting into a container, the top of the plant collapsed in very unambiguous expression of stress:

#33 July 31,  2015 02:30PM. Top collapse.

The droopiness was also observed on lower branches but not to the dramatic degree as the top.

It appears that the collapse began when the plant was moved into the bright sun and continued to worsen over next 30 minutes even after it was moved into shade. At one point it turned nearly 180 degree with the top pointing down.

The container was flooded with water, amounting to total of about 4 gallons applied in two increments (1 gal first, followed by 3 gal in about after 30 min).

The plant began to recover quickly after about 1 hour in shade:

#33 July 31, 2015 03:30PM. Partial recovery.

By the next morning the top appears to have full recovered only with a slight bend 4 inches from the top indicating previous stress:

#33 Aug 1, 2015. Next day recovery.

The plan is to bury the pot in the ground today.