Little Forests Kingston

Forest Walk & Learning Sunday at 10:00

No meeting today (Maureen, Joanne and I are in Ottawa participating in a “collect and grow native tree seeds field excursion”). Instead join us for a forest walk Sunday.

Meeting: Sunday April 3 2:00 pm

Location: Belle Island, meeting at the parking lot at Belle Park (Belle Park Drive, off Montreal Street)

Agenda:

• Walk and talk in the forest, learn about Enji-Goode (place of balance) Protocol

• Learn to identify trees in winter. Print and bring a copy of the Winter Tree Key. Learn how to use iNaturalist (works on most devices) to identify trees (install it and set up an account before you come).

• If you have an iPhone 13Pro/12Pro or iPad Pro 2021/2020, please install ForestScanner as we’d love to explore how to use it for measurement & 3D mapping.

Planting seedlings from different seed zones

“Planting source identified seedlings will help to maintain the balance of Ontario’s natural biodiversity in our most fragmented landscapes.” Tomorrow’s Forests: Tree Seed Management in Ontario, FGCA & Forests Ontario

I was chatting with someone from Forests Ontario yesterday about their seed strategy. When planting trees and forests, current advice from the Forest Gene Conservation Association is to mix seed sources: 50% from local seed zone (as you can see in the above diagram, our seed zone is 36). Then 25% each from 1 and 2 zones warmer (with around 10 or 20 additional days growing season length). So in the above map, from zones 37 or 38.

Here’s a really great interactive map that lets you select and view seed zones based on ecodistrict. We’re in ecodistrict 6E (Picton).

We order the bulk of our Little Forest seedlings from Verbinnen’s Nursery who propagate from seed collected across these seed zones. We don’t however know what % we’re receiving from each zone.

In October 2021 Toronto formed a partnership with Forests Ontario to implement a Tree Seed Diversity 2022-2031 program. Goals:

• maintain ecological integrity and ensure future resilience forest

• track native seed sources from appropriate climatic regions to support the adaptability and resiliency of our ecosystems against climate change

• ensure conservation of native species genetic diversity

The Ontario Plant Restoration Alliance is also encouraging communities to create local seed strategy projects. Currently these focus primarily on wildflowers, but a few - such a Norfolk - include some tree species such as Wild Crab Apple (Malus coronaria) a native species we haven’t been able to source through nurseries and Buffaloberry (Shepherdia canadensis), another that’s been difficult to source.

Seed sources appropriate for an ecosite also depend on elevation, which mean seeds sourced from areas in the United States may also be appropriate for our area (after all, trees don’t care about artificial political boundaries). This map from Ontario’s Seed Transfer Policy is a great example of this principle - Ecodistrict 6E-6 (bounded by thick line) “is a deployment area for seed collected in several ecodistricts or counties highlighted in red, representing the seed transfer area expected to be most climatically suitable for this deployment area.”

This visual from a training guide from the agroforestry network illustrates the difference in genetics and how the same species might grow in different microclimates.

Ontario’s seed zone atlas is available here, including this useful summary of seed collection guidelines.

To learn more about why understanding seed zones matters for gene conservation, genetic diversity and climate resilience, read this great article gene conservation: to sustain our forests, to sustain ourselves starting on page 11 of The Ontario Professional Forester’s magazine.

Indigenous seed collection program

Last week Natural Resources Canada announced the Indigenous Seed Collection Program in recognition that “Indigenous peoples have been the stewards of forests for generations, relying on them for food, shelter, medicine, spirituality and culture. The Indigenous Seed Collection Program supports Indigenous communities and organizations interested in developing their own seed collection programs or storing seed collections at the NTSC.” The program will:

• explore Indigenous seed collection and storage capacity;

• assess equipment and training needs across Canada;

• incorporate Indigenous knowledge into seed collecting, training and conservation efforts;

• collaborate with communities and Indigenous-led small and medium-sized enterprises to identify technical and training needs;

• co-develop a strategy with Indigenous communities to support the collection of species of interest for habitat creation, management of species at risk, restoration of ecosystems and community forest programs; and

• develop a network of community participants to assist in seed collection and processing.

An experimental ‘super forest’ in the UK

In the UK, they’ve launched an experimental ‘super forest’ project where they’re “develop[ing] a formula for planting woodlands that can soak up carbon emissions, provide space for nature and people, and yield timber that will help trees pay their way… The recipe they've come up with is to plant no less than 27 different types of tree, including conifers for absorbing carbon, a mixture of broad-leafed and native trees for biodiversity (the oaks are broad leafs), as well as trees that will supply valuable wood.”

While the focus on helping “trees pay their way” is really problematic & human-centric, the idea of planting a diversity of forest communities & monitoring them over time to deepen our understanding of and relationship with diverse forest communities is interesting.

Learning more about collecting and propagating tree seeds

I have a copy of Seeds of Ontario Trees & Shrubs Field Manual for Crop Forecasting and Collecting. This year it might be fun to time some of our forest walks to the seed cycle for selected species.

I’m going to reach out to FGCA to see if we can organize a Seed Collection workshop here in Kingston. This page also include a great list of resources and tools for seed collectors.