WA businesses turn to pine cone collectors to regrow burned forests

Locals are being tapped to collect pine cones in an effort to store seeds to re-grow forests before wildfires destroy natural seed banks in the Pacific Northwest.

This fall, cone collectors hit mountainous locations in search of fresh pine cones around Darrington.

A set of hands touches a small pine tree seedling that has been planted in the ground.

A seedling is planted in an area that has previously been torched by a wildfire.

In a small wooded location near the city, FOX 13 Seattle caught up with Laura Henry as she and her daughter combed through the woods. They quickly stumble onto a squirrel’s cache of green cones.

"He must be young, he’s not too good at hiding them yet," said Henry.

She digs through some sticks and dirt and unearths several dozen cones – noting that she’s found larger caches that extend more than a foot into the ground.

Those finds quickly turn into cash as buyers are keen to find seeds, the real value within the cones.

Collecting cones for cash is hardly new, though, there is more attention on the work than ever before as concerns grow with larger, more destructive wildfires along the West Coast.

In Darrington, a non-profit called Glacier Peak Institute acts as the middleman between Mast Reforestation and Silvaseed, the end-users of the seeds being collected today.

A pine cone is sliced in half by a device that looks similar to a paper cutter.

A Glacier Peak Institute employee slices a pine cone in half exposing the seeds inside. Workers will randomly select several cones to determine how many seeds are in each cone on average, and the health of the overall cone so that details can be reco

"You’ll see people out picking them to turn money on the side," said Oak Rankin, Glacier Peak Institute’s executive director.

It’s important work for locals, and it’s vital work for those in forestry.

"We’re collecting the broadest range of genetic diversity possible from the forest," said Kea Woodruff, Silvaseed’s general manager.

"Under whatever future scenarios happen in the landscape, whether it’s climate change, whether that’s disease, whether that’s a new species, new types of biodiversity, we had the seed we’re collecting that captures all that range of diversity so we can put trees back into the landscape in the future."

Summer fires in recent years put foresters in a rare position: they didn’t have enough seed to replant newly burned lands. 

On top of that, the Biden administration announced a plan to plant 1 billion trees across millions of acres of burned-out forests in 2022. The news came as the government’s ability to replant was being outpaced by destructive fires in the West.

In a place like Darrington, the work can be a welcome sight. Rankin is the first to explain that the areas outside of the I-5 corridor are often overlooked.

The collection of cones can be a payday to individuals like Henry, and the dozens of others that are now regularly out collecting.

On top of that, many of the locals have a deep connection with the surrounding forests.

"There is generational knowledge," said Rankin. "One thing we often forget about in Puget Sound as we’ve grown so much, is the value of local knowledge."

As he explains that knowledge, Jenna DuCharme arrived with several bushels of cones in a burlap bag.

DuCharme, a local martial arts instructor, took up picking pine cones only recently. Her husband, however, has been a forester for many years. He was able to offer up local knowledge, and she went to work.

"You have to know where the squirrels are cutting," she described, explaining how she’s been searching for Douglas Fir cones – a type of cone that you can find without climbing trees.

"The squirrels kind of do the work for you because there is no way I’m going to be climbing up a tree and grabbing all those cones."

However, in some parts of Washington, the types of cones being sought after do require climbing. That’s what makes this work so challenging, depending on what cones a specific location is searching for.

Silvaseed is currently only purchasing Douglas Fir cones through Glacier Peak Institute in Darrington. However, they’re collecting nearly a half-dozen different varieties between various Washington and Oregon locations.

Ben Alexandrowicz, a senior operations specialist, spent this summer scouting various locations throughout the Pacific Northwest to determine what locations would turn up the best "cone crops" for seed this season.

Those crops are meant to find diversity in terms of locations, elevations and species to ensure they’re collecting seeds that best represent the region.

This year, Alexandrowicz has seven buying stations he routinely makes stops at. The drives are constant reminders of the work they’re doing.

"On the way to almost every single buying station I’ll see an old burn scar," he said.

Once the cones are collected, they’re transferred to Silvaseed in Roy, Washington. There the seeds can be removed from their cones and stored until it’s time to be grown. That work takes place in Roy, as well.

Seedlings are grown on-site until they’re large enough for planters to go into the field and hand-plant thousands of plants that have been hand-picked to match the landscape that needs to be reforested.

Most likely, near the places where local Darrington men and women previously discovered them.

"One of the things that’s happening in wildfire is it’s burning the seed bank," said Woodruff. "Wildfire is essentially destroying the seeds of the future, so that’s why this really intense focus of we need to do something right now – because some of these landscapes, once those forests burn that seed source is lost forever if we don’t bank it now."

Those who do this work warn you to make sure you follow rules when it comes to picking pine cones to sell. Those who pay for cones are looking for specific types of seeds, depending on where you're located – they also have specific requirements when it comes to where they are sourced from. 

It's best to connect with a group that's actively purchasing cones to get the full details of what you need to know before you head into the forest to collect cones to ensure you are picking cones that are in demand, and that the location you're planning on picking them from matches the needs of seed buyers.

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