{"id":4276,"date":"2013-12-05T21:59:39","date_gmt":"2013-12-06T03:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treefolkstest.wpengine.com\/?p=4276"},"modified":"2013-12-05T21:59:39","modified_gmt":"2013-12-06T03:59:39","slug":"second-year-of-pine-tree-planting-kicks-off-in-fire-ravaged-bastrop-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.treefolks.org\/es\/2013\/12\/05\/second-year-of-pine-tree-planting-kicks-off-in-fire-ravaged-bastrop-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Second year of pine tree planting kicks off in fire-ravaged Bastrop County"},"content":{"rendered":"

October rains should help seedlings; last year\u2019s crop had high mortality rate because of drought.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Monday, Dec. 2, 2013<\/p>\n

By\u00a0Dave Harmon<\/a>\u00a0– American-Statesman Staff<\/p>\n

BASTROP \u2014 When Ray Long saw a flood of people pour out of the two big tour buses parked near his house last week, he wandered down the street to investigate.<\/p>\n

He watched dozens of people in matching green shirts and yellow hard hats planting pine seedlings on 8 treeless acres east of Bastrop. They\u2019d come to Austin from across the U.S. and Canada for a Kampgrounds of America convention and volunteered to help TreeFolks, an Austin nonprofit, start a new forest on brothers Steve and Michael Keselik\u2019s adjoining properties.<\/p>\n

\"PScott_Seedlings-DCannon\"<\/a>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

TreeFolks volunteer Phillip Scott holds a handful of loblolly pine seedlings. (Deborah Cannon photo)<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/b>\u201cThis is a godsend, having these folks come out here and re-establish this (forest),\u201d said Long, who rebuilt his house after it burned in the 2011 Bastrop Complex Fire.<\/p>\n

Tree planting season has begun in Bastrop County, where the skeletons of more than a million trees killed by the wildfire still loom over everything. It\u2019s the second year of the reforestation effort, and the goal is to put 1.5 million pine trees in the ground this winter \u2014 roughly three times more than last winter.<\/p>\n

Using native loblolly pine seeds that the Texas A&M Forest Service had stashed in an East Texas grocery cooler, TreeFolks, Bastrop State Park, the Forest Service and others plan to plant 4 million seedlings in Bastrop County over five years \u2014 half of them in the park. Private foundations have pledged to pay nurseries to grow the trees, which are being given to the park and landowners at no cost.<\/p>\n

\"Seedling_flag-DCannon\"<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

Volunteers hoped to plant 2,000 to 3,000 loblolly pine seedlings on 8 acres in Bastrop County earlier this month. (Deborah Cannon photo)<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

Most of the seedlings planted last winter didn\u2019t survive their first year. They were planted in parched soil \u2014 Bastrop County was in moderate to severe drought all winter \u2014 that in many places had been stripped of topsoil by erosion from post-fire rains. Texas leaf-cutting ants also killed an untold number by snipping off their needles, said Mike Fisher, the county\u2019s emergency management director.<\/p>\n

In Bastrop State Park, an estimated 13 percent of the 250,000 seedlings from last winter survived, said Jamie Hackett, superintendent for Bastrop and Buescher state parks. \u201cWhich sounds all doom and gloom,\u201d she said, \u201cbut we don\u2019t see it like that; we learned a lot.\u201d One big lesson: planting in sandy soil during a drought means high mortality rates.<\/p>\n

TreeFolks, which received a contract from Bastrop County to replant private land, saw a 41 percent survival rate for the 68,000 trees it planted last winter on 104 privately owned acres around the county, said program manager Carly Blankenship. That was about what they expected, she said.<\/p>\n

\"Booth-Kitay-DCannon\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From left, Mike Booth and Elizabeth Kitay plant loblolly pine seedlings in Bastrop County. (Deborah Cannon photo)<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the first year of everything, so it was kind of fly by the seat of your pants,\u201d she said, adding that more of their seedlings were planted in clay or rocky soils, which held moisture better.<\/p>\n

The pine seeds are sown in nurseries a year before they are planted, and officials planned for five consecutive planting seasons because they knew that some years would be too hot or too dry for many seedlings to survive.<\/p>\n

Heavy October rains have them optimistic about this winter\u2019s crop.<\/p>\n

\"Fireboundary-Caldaza\"<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, there\u2019s at least moisture in the soil, and that\u2019s a big advantage,\u201d said Dan Pacatte, TreeFolks\u2019 reforestation coordinator.<\/p>\n

TreeFolks plans to plant 780,000 trees on 175 to 200 properties this winter, and all of this year\u2019s seedlings are spoken for, Pacatte said, adding that landowners already are signing up for next year\u2019s seedlings.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s still a tiny portion of the private land that burned in the fire, which scorched more than 33,000 acres and destroyed more than 1,700 homes and other structures. To restore the Lost Pines \u2014 a unique pocket of loblollies separated from the East Texas Piney Woods by more than 100 miles \u2014 Pacatte said they\u2019ll need a lot more landowners to plant pines, rather than letting post oak and yaupon take over.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s people who went through the fire who don\u2019t want pines; they\u2019re scared (of another fire),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The challenge is equally large at Bastrop State Park, where 96 percent of the 5,926-acre park burned in the fire. But the logistics are easier because it\u2019s a single piece of state-owned land that can be re-planted in large swaths.<\/p>\n

On a\u00a0Friday\u00a0afternoon last month, Hackett, the parks superintendent, pulled off a park road and walked through one of the areas planted last winter. Amid the fallen remains of dead trees and a rising carpet of grasses and weeds, faded plastic flags marked the locations of the year-old seedlings.<\/p>\n

Some had shot up to a height of about 2 feet; others were struggling to reach a foot tall. Still others were brown and dead.<\/p>\n

Even though nearly 9 out of 10 pines planted last winter died, she calls the effort \u201ca great success\u201d because of the determination people have shown to restore the pine forest.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were just hungry to help out and put that tree in the ground,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was very much a learning year for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

This winter, they\u2019ll plant 400,000 trees on 650 acres, concentrating on Park Road 1C, the scenic corridor that connects Bastrop and Buescher state parks. A vendor is doing much of the planting, but the park also is planning 20 volunteer planting days this winter, she said.<\/p>\n

The planting is being paid for with some of the $4.9 million the Legislature approved this year for the park\u2019s fire recovery effort.<\/p>\n

Hackett said new pines have sprouted naturally in areas that escaped the most intense heat. But they\u2019ve lost some mature trees that survived the fire to pine bark beetles, which attack trees weakened by drought and fire. Park workers have treated 80 mature trees with an insecticide that repels the beetles, she said.<\/p>\n

Back on the Keselik brothers\u2019 land, Mercedes Hemmer from New Hampshire and Chenae Stump from Washington state \u2014 who both work at KOA campgrounds \u2014 planted seedlings side-by-side.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like it was devastating,\u201d said Stump, 29. \u201cI want to come back in a few years to see the progress.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October rains should help seedlings; last year\u2019s crop had high mortality rate because of drought. Monday, Dec. 2, 2013 By\u00a0Dave Harmon\u00a0– American-Statesman Staff BASTROP \u2014 When Ray Long saw a…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,60,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-bastrop-county-reforestation","category-reforestation","category-in-the-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t