–Contributed by Henry McBurney, VMN-Historic Southside Chapter
Along with the once vast longleaf pine savannahs spread across the southeastern U.S. landscape that, in 1607, began supplying the world’s appetite for sorely needed products, went their accompanying vibrant understory ecosystems. This great ecological loss, scarcely noticed for hundreds of years, is now finally getting the attention it deserves, thanks to the Longleaf Cooperators of Virginia.
The Longleaf Cooperators of Virginia is an informal group of people and organizations dedicated to restoring the longleaf pine ecology in Virginia. Their stated goal is to enhance plant and animal diversity while introducing fire as a management tool for the ecosystem. The hub of this restoration effort is the VA Department of Forestry’s Forestry Center in Sussex County that annually produces 32 million loblolly pine seedlings for sale.
No one living today has ever witnessed the vibrant longleaf pine understory ecosystems that once existed in southeastern Virginia as our longleaf pine savannahs were depleted well over a century ago. It has been determined from studying the few remaining longleaf pine savannas, located far from southeast Virginia, that their keystone understory species are the prevalent native grasses and forbs: native botanical species form the foundation of these amazingly vibrant and diverse regional ecosystems.
In southeastern Virginia what remaining native grasses and forbs existing today are widely scattered and not inner-connected. Thus, how will they be introduced into the 8,000 acres of scattered plantings of longleaf pines accomplished over the past thirty years? Over time, Mother Nature will eventually find a way, but is there a way that the Longleaf Cooperators of Virginia can lend Mother Nature a helping hand?
With this thought in mind many of the key players in the Longleaf Cooperators of Virginia began collecting seeds from southeastern Virginia native grasses and forbs. They have been saving them in the hopes of someday having a mechanism in place to multiply their efforts.
Fortunately, the year 2024 saw the culmination of a plan developed by major Longleaf Cooperators paving the way for utilizing these collected seeds. Thanks to grant funds obtained by Rebecca Wilson with the VA Department of Conservation and Recreation the week of May 13th, was a great week for the tireless efforts of the Longleaf Cooperators of Virginia. This was the week that Josh Bennicoff, Sussex Forestry Center Nursery Manager had scheduled the preparation of seedling trays for planting 300,000 longleaf pine seeds and also for preparing and planting the saved variety of native grass and forb seeds in trays designed for planting loblolly pines.
The production machinery at the Sussex Forestry Center is designed to partially fill each tray cell with peat moss, plant a single loblolly seed in each cell, cap off each cell with sawdust & water each tray as they exit the production line. Since the seed planting machinery is designed for one type of seed, it cannot plant grass/forb seeds nor does it place longleaf pine seeds well as their large size impedes seed placement. This is where volunteers come into play, including master naturalists from the Historic Southside Chapter, to help the situation.
So, the week began with preparing the seed trays for longleaf pines. This effort, utilizing numerous volunteers and staff from the various state agencies involved was to ensure that each of the 128 individual cells of all trays contained only one pine seed per cell. Next, the team transitioned to planting 33,000 shortleaf pine seeds; this combined effort took three days and filed approximately 2,600 trays ready for placement on outdoor racks.
Thursday, the final day of this auspicious effort was the placing of approximately 3,000 longleaf pine seeds harvested from longleaf cones collected from Chub Sandhill Natural Area Preserve.
One significant difference in the filling and planting of the trays during the Thursday’s effort was that vermiculite was used as the tray topping covering the individual seeds vs sawdust used in the previous 2,600+ trays of longleaf pine seeds. Our native grass and forb seeds are much smaller than longleaf pine seeds. Test results from previous years using vermiculite for topping these smaller seeds indicated improved germination vs using sawdust.
The Longleaf Cooperators of Virginia are eagerly anticipating the germination of the 243 trays of native grasses/forbs, (some 30,000 individual cells) and for the surprises they may offer. After germination and an assessment is complete, these thousands of plugs will be transplanted to a native seed orchard being established at Racoon Creek Pinelands, a privately held property protected by easement by The Nature Conservancy. Seed produced at this orchard will be used for groundcover restoration projects on conservation lands in SE VA for many generations to come. So, this week was the culmination of many years of discussions and aspirations and is really a significant milestone and a new beginning for the Longleaf Cooperators of Virginia.