The Palouse: a desert of golden wheat fields and rolling green hills stretching as far as the eye can see.
Outside Moscow Mountain, dense forests can be hard to come by down in the heart of town, as much of the area is dedicated to farmland.
Tucked away off of Highway 8 stands a large-scale forest nursery housing hundreds of thousands of young trees.
“We’re the nursery for the state of Idaho,” said Andrew Nelson, interim director for the Center for Forest Nursery and Seedling Research. “It’s a center that’s set up to do research, teaching and outreach. The Pitkin M. Forest Nursery is our operational arm of the center.”
Brandon Hill | Argonaut
Don Regan helps his staff thin young seedlings Wednesday
Nelson, along with Don Regan, manager of the nursery, lead an operation which employs more than 25 University of Idaho students and is responsible for the growth of 400,000 seedlings. With nearly 70 species being cared for year-round, Regan said it is vital to cultivate healthy relationships with the many students employed at the nursery to ensure a successful growing season.
“Once I narrow in on students who are very accurate and dependable and detailed, I give them a little leeway and train them and then come back and constantly check,” Regan said. “Once I start to feel comfortable, I turn them loose. The results have been outstanding.”
After attaining a bachelor’s degree in finance, he said he decided to turn his focus toward forest nursery management. He came to Moscow from Southern California with the intent of realizing that dream and was hired by the Pitkin Nursery in 2001.
Nearly 17 years after starting at the nursery, Regan said he still enjoys teaching students the ins-and-outs of forest nursery and management.
“It’s teamwork, and we really emphasize teamwork,” he said. “I like students who ask questions, because when you’re learning, you’re going to have questions.
Regan said attention to detail might be the most important skill to have while working at a large-scale nursery.
The year-long process requires immense dedication and careful examination to grow the most resilient trees possible, Regan said.
Starting in the late summer months, Regan and his staff contact seed suppliers, or visit the UI school forest and gather seeds from species like Ponderosa Pine, Douglas Fir and many others. The staff then attempts to break the dormancy of the seed, treating them with acids normally found in the stomachs of birds. Regan said this helps the plants grow at a uniform rate. Without careful treatment, he said, plant growth across the greenhouses would resemble a natural forest, leading to lower yields as some smaller plants lose out on sunlight.
“With sowing seedlings, you only get a one-time shot,” Regan said. “The seed treatments, the quality of the seed, the sowing part of it all has to be pretty much perfect. Whatever you sow, for the rest of the year, you’re investing a certain amount of money into that.”
Students like Emily Behrens are tasked with making sure the nursery doesn’t lose out on funds, as she and other student-employees fill Styrofoam containers with seeds and grit, making sure each plant will grow to its fullest potential. Behrens said it was her father’s job working for the Forest Service in Coeur d’Alene that helped her become enamored with forests and nursery management.
“After working here, I’ve learned more about packing them and shipping them and the whole cycle,” Behrens said. “It’s been really fun. I really like the environment. Everyone seems to really get along here. I like being active and just spending more time outside and getting to be able to move around.”
Regan said after Behrens and her fellow employees thin out weak or dying plants, staff members begin irrigation. Once fall hits, Regan will open the doors to the greenhouses to chill the plants, preparing them for real-world conditions. Around this same time, orders start rolling in, and the students begin preparing to pack and ship off the trees to new locations.
Lauren Goss leads the charge in sales. As the nursery’s sales and outreach coordinator, Goss said she makes sure all the plants make their way to their perspective customers.
She came to the nursery much like many of her fellow staffers, as a student. After graduating in 2017, Goss took a seasonal internship before eventually returning as a full-time employee, giving her the rare opportunity of being involved in every step of the nursery process.
“I was helping sowing the seedlings, then I went and packed all of them and now I get to sell all of them and ship them off to their new homes,” Goss said. “That will never happen again, because I will never get to do every single step again.”
Goss and the team send the young trees to places like Nebraska, Wyoming and Washington, as well as local areas on the Palouse, like UI’s very own school forest. Nelson said the Pitkin Nursery supplies 100 percent of seedlings to the school forest, something that hasn’t happened in more than 35 years.
As for the other clients, Nelson said he and fellow researchers are always trying to find new ways to grow stronger, healthier seedlings.
“It’s a hands-on teaching facility here. (Students) learn operational skills that they can take out into the work force,” Nelson said. “We do a lot of research that’s primarily focused on improving seedling quality and regeneration of a variety of species.”
Regan said Nelson both agreed working for the nursery offers students the unique opportunity to be given larger, managerial roles they would not otherwise have in the workforce. Nelson said they often receive calls from potential employers, asking about the availability of soon-to-be graduates.
“You go around and talk to people who work in the forest industry, and three out of five people are going to be graduates of this program and worked here at the Pitkin Nursery,” Nelson said. “They’re hired because they have this skillset. We’re really unique in that aspect.”
Brandon Hill can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @brandonmtnhill