Bogallan Nursery, North Kessock
The photograph is courtesy of the family of George Dey. George took many forestry photographs in his forestry career and many of those are now shown on this web site. Check under ‘Groups’ and George Dey Collection.
Over many years the Forestry Commission selected the best quality Sitka spruce trees from within 1000s of hectares of forests. Seed from the best trees were sown and grown in special seed stands around the country. From within the seed stands the best of these trees were controlled cross pollinated with other high quality specimens and the resulting progeny grown for 10-20 years to assess the quality potential. Initially the process was a very slow one as seed had to be procured, planted and then grown on but this changed dramatically when vegetative propagation of Sitka spruce cuttings was perfected.
This photograph shows ‘plus’ trees in this private nursery from the above programme which have been grown from cuttings/seed in pots for some years now having all their fresh leading shoots snipped off into cutting sized material. The PDF shows the leading shoots being inserted into specially prepared cutting beds where the conditions will be managed to encourage striking and root production. After about a year or so the rooted cuttings will be lined out in the open nursery beds and grown on to normal sized trees for planting in the forest.
Can anyone name any of the young workers?
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Groups: Forest Nurseries, Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, George Dey Forestry Collection