Seedling Inventory.....

Each summer as the growing season reaches it's peak and begins its slow decent towards autumn it is important we take an inventory of our crop to get an idea of how many healthy trees will have been produced by years end. This information is collected and entered into a database, then relayed to our clients at their respective National Forests so they can prepare contracts, hire crews and organize the logistics for planting the trees at their project sites the following spring.

Lodgepole Pine seedlings inside one of our greenhouses.

Annually, our nursery produces approximately 2 million seedlings within our container seedling program, all of which are grown inside greenhouses in large styrofoam blocks that contain anywhere from 45-160 seedlings per block. The seedlings orders we receive from our clients are organized according to species and seed source and each seedling "lot" is tracked this way in our inventory system.

Styrofoam growing block containing 112 trees.

Depending on the size of the seedling lot, a set amount of samples are taken and counted to give us an average. For example, a seedling lot that contains 1,000 containers would require us to take 15 random samples, or a 1.5% sample rate, to get our average number of trees. This task is pretty simple, we choose a random block of trees, count the amount of healthy trees within the block and record the information into the database which is neatly organized onto a tablet where the information is saved and uploaded to a server that manages our inventory.

Measuring the trees height and girth.

Next we need to get an idea of the average size of the trees in our randomly selected block. Each species of tree that we grow is assigned certain specifications that the young seedling must meet for it to be deemed a quality tree that is acceptable for shipping to our clients. This task is accomplished by using a ruler and a caliper to measure both the height of the tree and the diameter of it's stem/trunk. For example, a Ponderosa Pine seedling from our nursery is required to have a height of 3 inches and a stem diameter of 3mm.

A healthy Lodgepole Pine plug from one of our containers.

From each randomly selected block of trees we will take 5 samples from within the block and record the height in inches and the diameter of the stem in millimeters. This information is entered into our tablet and uploaded from tablet to the server where it is used to give us an average size of tree per container for each seedling lot.

Tablet where we enter our data to be downloaded onto a server and analyzed later.

All of the information gathered is then entered into a spreadsheet where we can see how many trees on average are in each container, what the average height and stem size is and that information is then used to give us an estimate of many good quality seedlings will be available for filling our clients order in the fall when we pack the trees.

Inventory can be a little monotonous, all said and done it takes about 2 weeks to complete, but it is also very satisfying as it lets us inspect the fruits of our labor while also giving us our first real data on how the crop preformed during the growing season. From here on out the trees will continue to grow in the greenhouses for a few more months before being packed into boxes this fall and put into a freezer where they will sit dormant until shipping the following spring.........Then we start the whole growing cycle all over again!