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The weather declared war on the Virginia Department of Forestry’s planting program in Rappahannock this year but Old Man Winter only won a partial victory. Despite an unusually short season, approximately 220 acres of loblolly and white pines went into the ground.
“We couldn’t lift the trees from the seedbeds,” reported county forester Lyt Wood. “First they were frozen, then mired down from the rain.” According to Wood, only half the reforestation projects on the books this year for Rappahannock County were completed before time ran out last weekend.
"We normally plant right through the winter,” said Wood. Trees are put in as late as mid-December and planting is resumed in February as soon as the ground begins to thaw. “This year, we only Irad-^fbur weeks,” he said. According trf Wood, seedlings should be planted when they’re dormant. If they’re set out too late in the Spring, a dry spell may hit just when the trees begin to grow. “The survival rate drops off long about the middle of April,” he noted.
Under the state’s reforestation program, the Virginia Forestry Division will supply landowners with seedlings at cost. Over 90 million pine seedlings are produced each year It forestry division nurseries in New Kent and Augusta. New Kent, where loblollies are grown, is the largest forestry nursery in the world, according to Wood.
In addition to money saved from buying young trees at cost from the state nurseries, Wood noted that landowners can sometimes recover half the price of seedlings from the forest industry. Also, the federal government will often reimburse part of the actual planting costs, he said.
The Forestry Division arranges for workers to plant the seedlings but the landowner pays the labor force himself. Wood said the Division usually hires local people who need work or employs professional contract planting crews to do the job.
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