Halsey – Celebrate Arbor Day this April 24th with a trip to the Nebraska National Forests & Grasslands, Bessey Ranger District and Bessey Nursery near Halsey.

The Arbor Day Celebration starts at 10:00 am at the Visitors Center/District Office near the Forest entrance. Bring a picnic lunch and enjoy the celebration, which will include a nursery tour, an overview of the new Discovery Loup, and the planting and dedication of a new tree in the Arboretum.

A nursery tour in the spring is a rare opportunity to see it in full production; nursery personnel are in the midst of growing, packing and shipping hundreds of thousands of seedlings to the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Natural Resource Districts, and other government agencies.  The seedlings are used for reforestation following fire and insect infestations, wildlife habitat plantings, wind breaks, and conservation plantings.

“We’ll be shipping container seedlings of Douglas-fir, ponderosa pine, Engelmann spruce, and lodge pole pine to forest sites throughout the Rocky Mountain Region this spring,” says Richard Gilbert, Bessey Nursery Manager.  “Seedlings are grown from cones gathered by Forest Service personnel and sent to us for extraction and storage until they are needed in the USFS Region 2 Seed Bank.”

“We have over 14,000 pounds of conifer seed in the seed bank,” Gilbert said.  “The container tree seedlings shipping this year were started in February 2014, packed once dormant in November 2014, stored in a freezer at 26 degrees, and thawed out in the spring and planted shortly after.  It’s gratifying to know we play a part in preserving the natural integrity of our nation’s forests.”

In addition to providing seedlings to the Forests, over 1,000,000 bare root seedlings will be lifted out of our fields and will be going out to the Natural Resource Districts in Nebraska.  In all we will ship 2 to 2.4 million seedlings this spring to the following states:  Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska.