Went from Burnsville to Selma this morning. I saw a patch of pine trees with bags over some of the higher up branches. The crew was out there with lifts performing that task. Anyone k ow what that’s about? Beetles?

They are collecting the seeds. That's a pine orchard.

Yeah, they collect those seeds all the time, is it right across from the entrance into the papermill?

It is actually controlled pollination. They put sacks around the female cone before it is fertilized by native pine pollen and control which male pollen is used to make the seed. Improves genetics for specific traits.

Controlled pollination, they do it every year to make the pine supertrees.

I lease a place south of Aliceville that used to be a Weyerhaeuser nursery. Every tree had a number and they did that all the time. They swapped land with Gulf States (Westervelt) and they clear cut it and replanted it in their trees.

Neat!

That's a lot of tedious work in those lifts....

One time I lost the bottom of my climber about 10ft up a pine. Y’all wanna talk about a sack on a pine tree!!!

Can they cross pollinate them with some "Little Debbie" treats? Imagine the $ hunters could save if you could just pick Little Debbie Christmas Tree off the pine trees.

Well, atleast you didn’t have far to drag.

They will have a whole crew of lifts out there sometimes. It still surprises me that there arent bags everywhere after a wind storm.