Authored By Staff report

The Tennessee Department of Agriculture Division of Forestry is accepting applications for the Trees for Tennessee and Play. Plant. Preserve tree seedling programs. The programs provide family forest landowners with free seedlings for forest sustainability and restoration. Trees for Tennessee is an initiative aimed at increasing pine regeneration on recently harvested land or fallow fields. Sponsored by Huber Engineered Woods LLC, the goal of the program is to establish 250,000 pine seedlings every year throughout the greater Tennessee Valley and Cumberland Plateau regions. ProMark’s Play. Plant. Preserve. program works to ensure that the hardwood resources used for making drumsticks and mallets in Tennessee are sustainable. The program provides 75,000 hardwood seedlings for planting statewide on family forestland to restore existing forests and raise new ones. “We appreciate Huber Engineered Woods and ProMark for their commitment to Tennessee’s conservation efforts,” State Forester David Arnold said. “We encourage our forest landowners to take advantage of this opportunity to increase the productivity of their forest resources.” To be eligible for the programs, landowners must have a reforestation prescription plan prepared by a professional forester and plant a minimum number of trees. Quantities are limited, so participants should place orders as soon as possible. Seedlings used for both programs are grown at the Division of Forestry’s East Tennessee Nursery located in Delano, Tenn. The companies who sponsor the programs cover the purchase cost. Professional tree planting vendor costs are not covered through either program. However, the landowner may plant their own trees. Seedlings grown by the Division of Forestry help supply the raw materials needed to support Tennessee's forest products industry that in 2009 represented a $21 billion dollar economic engine providing over 101,000 jobs across the state. In 2010, 4.6 million pine seedlings and 1.5 million hardwood seedlings were grown, representing over 14,000 acres in tree planting. The vast majority of the pine seedlings will be planted for fiber and timber production. The value to landowners of these pine plantings (11,000 acres) when mature is conservatively estimated to be over $22 million in current dollars. Most of the hardwood plantings (3,400 acres) will be tailored to provide environmental benefits; most important being streamside buffers and wildlife habitat. Additionally, over $1 million is estimated to have been paid to tree planting and other forestry services vendors in establishing these plantings. Much of the economic activity generated through the Division of Forestry's reforestation program occurs in Tennessee's rural landscape, providing much-needed jobs and revenue. From a timber perspective, landowners that plant Division of Forestry pine seedlings today receive a 25 percent gain in productivity as compared to seedlings available 30 years ago. Tennessee's tree improvement program is expected to continue achieving a 1-2 percent annual gain in pine volume production for the next decade or longer. As a result, landowners planting Division of Forestry pine seedlings 10 years from now can potentially receive an additional $200 or more per acre at final harvest than they would today. Forests also provide other "nontraditional" benefits, including water quality and quantity protection, habitat for wildlife, habitat for rare and endangered plants and animals, opportunities for recreation, aesthetics, carbon sequestration, and open spaces. Watersheds especially depend on healthy forests and riparian buffers for quality water yield. The Division is currently implementing strategies to identify landowners who, through planting forested riparian buffers, will ensure these watersheds continue to produce clean, abundant water for public use. The Reforestation Program is uniquely positioned to produce the genetically improved seed and seedlings specifically tailored to allow efficient and effective tree planting practices associated with implementing these strategies.  