THE HISTORY OF FOREST NURSERY DEVELOPMENT IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: 
A Reflection of Policy and Technology
by Evert Van Eerden, RPF(ret)

The catalyst for advances and expansion in BC’s reforestation programs and practices, including forest seedling production, invariably can be traced to public policy initiatives. E. (Ted) Knight, former Director of the Ministry of Forests’ Reforestation Branch, chronicled the policy milestones relevant to reforestation in BC in Regenerating British Columbia’s Forests. In his leadoff chapter, Reforestation in British Columbia: A Brief History, Knight observes: “British Columbia’s reforestation policies and programs have evolved through four distinct stages, each reflecting the political view of forest management at the time.” Those four phases were all founded in the findings and recommendations of Royal Commissions of Inquiry into Forest Policy, starting with Fulton (1910 -1912 - first Forest Act), Sloan I and II (1945 and 1955, respectively), and most recently, Pearse (1976). Forest policy developments in BC during the past 100 years confirm a growing political awareness that effective reforestation policies and practices, including the production and planting of forest seedlings on denuded forest lands, are a fundamental cornerstone to a sustainable yield forest policy model. 

Forest Nursery Production in BC - the Formative Years
Recognition of the need for research into the growing and planting of coniferous species precipitated the establishment of a small government research nursery in Victoria, BC in 1926. That test nursery was closed in 1932. The first production nursery was opened at Green Timbers in Surrey, BC in 1930. Another coastal nursery was established at Quinsam near Campbell River in 1939. The production from this nursery provided planting jobs for many men who had become unemployed during the depression, and served to re-establish the Sayward and Campbell River forests that had been decimated by wildfires during the late thirties. Production at the Quinsam nursery was later relocated to its present site at Gordon Road just west of Campbell River. Additional coastal nurseries were established at Chilliwack, Duncan (Koksilah), and Surrey, BC. 

Early on, planting was largely confined to the Coast. Into the 1960s, any planting that was done in the Interior mostly relied on stock grown at coastal nurseries. However, there were some pilot planting projects just outside of Smithers, BC from 1961 through 1963, and manual transplanting with transplanting boards was done at the small Telkwa Nursery during spring breakups in the same period. To augment the coastal supply of seedlings for the Interior, the Red Rock Nursery near Prince George was developed and commenced production in 1967. Additional nurseries were later established in the Interior at Salmon Arm (Skimikin), Vernon, at Harrop (Nelson), and Terrace (Thornhill). 

Bareroot was the only stock type available into the early 1970s, after which a gradual conversion to container stock took hold. Of the eleven nurseries brought into production by the Ministry of Forests from 1930 into the 1980s, eight were initially developed as bareroot and transplant nurseries, while the last three (Vernon, Harrop, and Thornhill) were developed exclusively for container seedling production. Six of the eleven MOF nurseries currently remain in production under private ownership. 

From very small beginnings in the 1930s, seedling production and planting gradually increased, reaching 75 million seedlings by 1975. This milestone was achieved in part through special funding for the “Habitat” program. From that level, the program rapidly expanded, reaching a peak of seedling production of 305 million seedlings by 1989, facilitated by conversion to container-grown stock and the federal/provincial Forest Resource Development Agreement (FRDA) to address NSR backlog. During the last decade, annual seedling production has hovered in a range of about 220 to 250 million seedlings. In 2007, seedling orders in BC amounted to 260 million. 

Innovation and Technology
Development and testing of container seedling technology as an alternative to bareroot has a long history. In BC, it was the pioneering work by the late Jack Walters of the Faculty of Forestry at UBC, who invented the Walters Planting Gun and Plastic Bullet (1961), and the subsequent development of the “Styroblock” by a CFS/BCFS team led by Jim Kinghorn during the late sixties and seventies that would alter the course of seedling production in BC, much of Canada, and elsewhere. Walters considered that intensive silviculture through mechanization held substantial economic promise for future forest management in BC, and both Walters and Kinghorn recognized that mechanized planting could be a significant boon for coping with rapidly expanding planting programs. By considering the seedling encapsulated in its container, the bullet, and the planting gun as integral components of the same planting implement, Walters envisioned mechanized planting. Various bullets, made from hard polystyrene, biodegradable wood and other materials as well as various planting guns were designed, constructed, and tested. Prototype planting machines with single or multiple planting guns were also designed, fabricated, and tested. Aerial planting with bullet seedlings was also explored. Kinghorn at the Pacific Forestry Centre of the CFS undertook the further development of the Walter’s bullet system as a vehicle for bridging the gap between forest researchers and practitioners in 1966/1967. He and his project team in the CFS (Research, Development and Extension work) and BCFS (Field Installations and Nursery Development) soon learned that while foresters appreciated the concept of and potential advantages of container seedling growing and planting, they did not accept the real or perceived root encapsulation of a hard plastic container, albeit in two parts with a slide slit like a clam shell for root egress. Therefore, in subsequent trials, some of the seedlings were removed from their bullet containers and planted alongside bulleted seedlings. Based on the results of those comparisons, a design for a plug container, the “BC/CFS Styroblock” was drawn up in the winter of 1969, and the first 100,000 styroplugs (lodgepole pine) were planted in July, 1970 at McBride Lake near Houston, BC. The plug type of container-grown seedling found wide acceptance, and demand for plugs escalated and soon exceeded traditional BC nursery capacity. Various design refinements, including ribs, many different cavity sizes to facilitate production of various species and seedling sizes, and copper coating of cavity walls to stop root spiraling of some species - mainly pines - have been added over the years but the basic design has endured.

Production and planting of container-grown seedlings has been tried and implemented in many different places with varying degrees of success. The reasons for and the success of complete conversion from bareroot to styroplugs in BC is attributable to a number of factors, including but not limited to the following:
1. At the outset, working in the coastal climatic conditions enabled developers to produce seedlings in containers that were relatively robust in size compared to other regions. 
2. Early recognition that size and quality are equally as important for container-grown stock as they are for bareroot (fitness for purpose). 
3. Early awareness that container-grown but “container-less seedlings” when they are planted, need strong and cohesive root systems that maintain plug integrity when they are lifted, packaged, and planted. 
4. Species - several of which were difficult to grow as bareroot. 
5. Adoption of one container system by the entire industry for a long period of time, providing a common basis for effective information exchange and extension work. 
6. Innovation and early emphasis on biology rather than engineering and economics, ultimately followed by gradual transition to production that is dominated by competent commercial operators, who were prepared and able to make the necessary investments. 
7. Development at a time when planting was rapidly expanding and demand could not be met with traditional sources of production.

Privatization
The escalation of planting had necessitated the introduction of contract planting as early as 1968. However, forest seedling production in BC essentially remained the exclusive domain of the MOF into the early 1980s. Two private nurseries, Pelton Reforestation Ltd., which produced mudpacks from base stock supplied by MOF nurseries, and Reid Collins Nurseries Ltd., which raised relatively small amounts of container seedlings grown in paperpots for private clients, were already in production. In 1976, an innocuous recommendation by the Pearse Royal Commission on Forestry: “Government should consider allowing forest seedling production by private nurseries”, challenged the MOF monopoly on forest seedling production and changed the course of forest seedling production in the province, ushering in an era of privatization. Acting on the Pearse recommendation, the MOF Deputy Minister of the day, Mike Apsey, appointed a public/private policy committee to make recommendations, and private sector nursery production under contract to MOF commenced in 1981. 

Contracts were let only to private contractors who could provide evidence of competency in the production of forest seedlings and/or other conifers. As a result and for a time, MOF growers were in hot demand. To ensure that the program would be successful, private growers were also given the opportunity to take advantage of MOF extension services, and regional grower meetings were held on a regular basis. To facilitate the exchange of technical information, the Forest Nursery Association of BC (FNABC) was formed in 1981, including membership from private and government nurseries and industry suppliers. The FNABC continues until today, holding an annual meeting in different regions of the province. With multiple-year contracts in hand and a progress payment system related to various crop completion phases, private growers were able to secure the necessary financing to build the required nursery infrastructure. Forestry company or licensee nurseries were also granted approval to produce seedlings for their own requirements on the basis of a financial formula that reimbursed approved capital costs plus interest over a twenty-year period and annual production expenses referenced to MOF equivalent costs. Three licensee nurseries proceeded on this basis while three others started and continued operations without the benefit of that cost recovery program. Three of the six licensee nurseries that were started are still in production today. 

In 1987, the BC government of the day undertook further steps to shift responsibility for reforestation in the province to the private sector. First, licensees were authorized to enter into seedling supply contracts directly with the nurseries of their choice. All seedling orders, licensee and MOF, were channeled through the MOF Silviculture Branch and allocated by Branch staff to certain nurseries on the basis of nursery overall space and stock type capacity. Thus, early in the years of container seedling production when capacity for such stock was limited, allocation of container-grown stock was severely rationed. Allowing licensees to deal directly with nursery operators spurred significant private sector investment in and expansion of container seedling growing capacity around the province and removed this capacity restriction.

A second major policy shift in 1987 was the announcement by government that it intended to privatize and sell nine of the government nurseries. One of the nine nurseries, Green Timbers, was ultimately removed from the process because of its historical and urban recreational value, as recommended by at least one of the proponents. After about a year, six of the nurseries were acquired by Pacific Regeneration Technologies Inc. (PRT), an employee-owned company founded by MOF personnel, including Charlie Johnson, Evert (Ev) Van Eerden, and the employees of the six nurseries. No other bidder had expressed an interest in buying a block of six nurseries and keeping much of the original nursery organization together, as had been envisioned by Johnson. This transaction was strongly resisted by existing commercial nurseries, but ultimately proceeded. The remaining two nurseries, Koksilah and Telkwa, were acquired by other purchasers, and both closed within a few years of the sale. Of the three government nurseries that were left, Green Timbers was closed in 1998, but remains as a historical and arboretum site, while the two other nurseries, Skimikin and Surrey, were privatized more recently. 

The Future
Government and industry must maintain their commitment to prompt planting as the proven and most effective practice for establishing the new forest. Carbon offset planting holds a huge opportunity for BC, Canada, and the reforestation industry. Will new methods and technologies for growing seedlings be developed and adopted? Perhaps! Applied genetics and tissue culture (embryogenesis) hold substantial promise for mitigating the impact of forest pests and for improving yield from our future forests. The current difficulties in securing sufficient labour for nurseries and planting, as a result of changing demographics, and extremely favourable economic conditions in other economic sectors, may resurrect the aspirations of Walters and others for more mechanization in reforestation. 

Finally, whatever the future holds for forest seedling production and planting, it will always be true that “a poor tree well-planted is better than a good tree poorly planted, but a good tree well-planted is best” (Jack Long, distinguished and long-retired nurseryman with the BC Ministry of Forests).

Evert (Ev) Van Eerden, RPF(ret), can be contacted by e-mail at ev.newgen@shaw.ca.