Fall Lift & Pack....

Bare root pine seedlings being inspected and graded.

The fundamental mission of working at a seedling nursery is preparing the fields, filling our greenhouses with containers, sowing the seed and of course, growing the trees.

While that certainly takes up the bulk of our year, at the end of each growing season an equally important aspect of the operation is lifting the trees from the seedling beds of the bare root fields or removing the trees from the containers and packing them for shipment to our clients the following spring. The term commonly used within the industry for this portion of our endeavor is 'Lift and Pack'.

Tractor operator using the lift bar to undercut seedlings.

After seedling inventory is complete earlier in the fall we send our clients information about their expected crop so they can begin planning for planting at their respective sites as weather conditions permit in early spring.

Each year after Thanksgiving here at the nursery we begin the process of delivering their seedlings by printing out a copy of the order request, firing up the tractors, putting on our warm clothes and heading out into the fields to pull the seedlings from the beds in which they have been growing for the past 7-8 months.

Crew carefully pulling the seedlings from the soil.

A specialized lift bar is attached to the back of the tractor that undercuts the seedlings while also lifting them from the ground. Crews of workers then follow behind carefully pulling the

trees from the dirt, shaking off the remaining soil and placing them into tubs where they will be taken into a cooler for storage until we are ready to pack them into boxes.

Now that the trees have been removed from the fields, the tubs full of trees are taken into the nursery packing shed where each tree will be inspected for health and vigor. Each seedling is also graded according to height and stem diameter specifications set for each species of tree. Only the best seedlings are sent down the conveyor belt to be bundled and placed into boxes or bags. The boxes are then labeled, inventoried and put onto a pallet before being placed into a large refrigerated cooler where they will remain dormant until spring when our clients are ready to receive them for planting.

Inspected trees on their way down the conveyor and into their boxes!

Overall this process takes about 2 months to complete and gives us a chance to see the fruits of our labor while also refreshing our spirits after the long growing season. With the trees lifted and removed from the fields and greenhouses, work has already begun in the seed lab preparing next years seed sources and we quickly turn our attention to the growing season ahead where we will complete the whole process all over again!