Interesting one!

Surprised there's so much variation in size, plantings over here tend to be very uniform in size.

Also rather surprising that the small ones have survived at all! - I'd have thought they'd get shaded out by other trees. Maybe they're on small pockets of very poor quality soil with minimal competition?

The white mycelium in the duff looks to me to be just normal leaf-litter-decomposing fungi, not mycorrhizal.

Resin

Awesome, thanks for posting these pics.

You said they were up near the border, they don't naturally occur near there do they?

It's nice to see these guys just taking off like they do over there.
You had said that they might have been planted 60 years ago, so perhaps some of the smaller ones are seedlings. Looks like a seedling in the last picture, and judging by their growth rate it wouldn't take long to get over 7 feet.

Have you tried any seed from their cones?

Nate

Hi Nate,

I'd doubt there would be many, if any seedlings - Sequoiadendron usually only regenerates on burnt soil, not in organic leaf litter. The green shoot in the last pic has mature leaves so I suspect is a broken twig off one of the older trees, not a seedling, which at that age would still have juvenile leaves.

Hard to know the age of the trees; the ones in the top pic to me look like something in the range of 10-25 years.

In good conditions it can grow fast, trees in Britain have reached 15m in 20 years and 27m in 40 years, and one in Italy reached 22m in 17 years.

Resin

why arent the babes considered self sown?

wouldnt one presume that if uniformly planted on some grid system .. that they would not allow for seedlings ... since they would be planted by design ... and eventually shade out the understory plants ....

yet I THINK .. newer planting systems are more random ... no grid system .. allowing for gaps where babes can grab hold??

yes??? no??? ... just wondering

ken

PS: here in MI ... back in the 1930's ... the CCC [a depression era civilian conservation corp) ... planted huge swaths of pines.. perfectly aligned in .... guessing.. 10 foot squares ..... we have forests of perfectly aligned trees .... almost cathedral like in their beauty ... go figure

Before it can make seedlings it has to release its seeds. Cone opening requires drying, which occurs in four known ways. First, convection of heated air from ground fires running below; second, beetle larvae cutting off water supply to cones; third, Douglas squirrels feeding on the green cone scale tissue; fourth, cone-bearing branches breaking off and drying out on the ground.
Otherwise the serotinous cones will stay alive and green in the crown for many years, putting annual rings on the cone stalks, and often getting covered by lichen growth.

Nice. Appear to be planted too close to each other.

How far inland are they? What altitude?

the four known ways of the cones opening that you're talking about is relevant only to their native grove. There are no squirrels (especially not dougals squirrels) where these are growing and rarely does there seem to be forest fires. All that needs to happen for the cones to open is that they need to be cut off from the tree's vascular system, which can happen in a 60 mph windstorm, as happened here. The elevation these guys are at is roughly 3600 feet, but they're at the base of a volcano (that hasn't erupted since the eighteenth century) and the wind gusts get incredible. That's how I got all those cones, by going there the day after a bad winter windstorm. I wouldn't be surprised if there are any seedlings that have germinated from this grove.

-ss

There's a big difference between seed release and successful seedling germination - seed is often released by Giant Sequoias in Britain (a fair number of cones open at maturity here, for whatever unknown reasons), but regeneration doesn't occur here, mainly due to soil conditions unsuited to the survival of the seedlings. One such unsuitable soil condition is thick dead needle fluff; the GS seedling roots can't get through it. I'd say that's the main reason why there's no regeneration here.

Resin

Reproduction of giant sequoia is spotty at best, even in its native groves in the Sierra Nevada of CA. I don't have my reference book on the matter before me now, but a number of the groves consist of very old trees only and have zero reproduction. And those that do have some fair amount of reproduction, this reproduction is not resulting in much, if any expansion of the groves beyond the boundaries outlined by the very oldest trees.

In all my hiking through the groves, the only place where I would say reproduction is anything like abundant is where the old trees were logged and the area subsequently burned. One of the best areas to see this reproduction is in the old logged Boole Tree Grove in the Converse Basin (originally one of the finest of all the groves), but I can't at this point remember well enough to say that the reproduction even there has been adequate enough to ensure the new grove will be as large as the one destroyed by the logging/fire.

Fire seems to aid reproduction, but virtually all of the old groves have had fire run through them at fairly frequent intervals--usually one or more times each century--but even this frequency of fire which would favor conditions for seed germination has not resulted in any reproduction in many of the groves for literally hundreds of years.

And this lack of reproduction cannot be explained by any reduction in the percentage of fertile seed from very old trees. I have read that giant sequoia trees are one of a very few kinds of trees where fertility does not decrease with age.

I really have not heard any good explanation for the lack of natural reproduction in so many of the sequoia groves and its general lack of abundance anywhere in its natural range.

--Spruce

Hi Spruce,

Agree with most of that, except "I have read that giant sequoia trees are one of a very few kinds of trees where fertility does not decrease with age" Â I don't know of any trees where fertility does decrease with age. Even 'Methuselah' (oldest Pinus longaeva) still produces plenty of cones with viable seeds.

Resin

Resin:

Quoting you quoting me and commenting from above:

"Agree with most of that, except "I have read that giant sequoia trees are one of a very few kinds of trees where fertility does not decrease with age" Â I don't know of any trees where fertility does decrease with age. Even 'Methuselah' (oldest Pinus longaeva) still produces plenty of cones with viable seeds."

I continue to be astounded at how much bad information there is about trees out there--often in books by reputable publishers. Not the first time I have been a victim. I can't remember where I read that, but I thought I had confirmation with one very large and very old white oak tree I have that I have been observing for over 30 years and it never produced a single acorn that I am aware of. Some other reason than age, I would guess. At this point I assume that you know what you are talking about.

--Spruce

Hi Spruce,

Pinetree30 will no doubt see this and chime in soon - he's said much the same in the past

Resin

From what I've read, conservationists have been hesitant to use fire for germination.
Only now are they getting back into necessary controlled burns.
Better late than never, I suppose.

Josh

Okay, I'll chime in. Chime, chime.
On the issue of regeneration, here are some good words by Walter Fry and John White in their 1930 book "Big Trees", an oldie but goodie.
"...the Big Tree is low in actual reproduction...It is no uncommon thing to see trees that have been bearing seed for one thousand years or more yet show no reproduction beneath them....[but] certain groves stand out conspicuously as active in reproduction: the Giant Forest Grove, the Garfield Grove, the Redwood Meadow Grove, and the Suwanee Grove."
Also --"...it is no uncommon thing to find hundreds of seedlings springing up on areas of exposed soil."
They also discuss the thick "crust" on the ground requiring landslide or fire removal, and the many critters that kill seedlings.
In Kings Canyon-Sequoia fire has been used for several decades and apparently has resulted in satisfactory regeneration in those localities. You can probably find out from the Park where to see this.
I agree with Resin about decrease in fertility with age. I would phrase it differently, however by pointing out that very old trees may be low producers of seeds due to sparse and battered crowns that just don't make many cones; but are still "fertile".
Yes, many tree books have lots of misinformation. I have worked hard not to fall into that category in my own books, and it is not easy, I can tell you.

Nice pics! Without a human though, it's hard to get a true sense of scale.

If they were self-reproducing one would expect to see a bunch of very small trees.

Little trees get attacked by all sorts of things, and in colder climates, frost heave will kill most seedlings under one year old. Rips them right out of the ground. The soil conditions have to be just so. However, the seeds will germinate best in moist organic soil. They need a lot of water (think melting snow) to germinate, but can't be waterlogged. I've tried getting them to germinate in mineral soil, but it's nearly impossible. I think I'll try loose pebbles or something this year.

Here in Britain there are a few Coast redwood plantations
with natural regeneration I know of a CR plantation not
far from here with some seedlings however always close
to the parent trees for some reason.I don't know of any
Sequoiadendron plantations in Britain Resin might know.

"Without a human though, it's hard to get a true sense of scale"

Going by comparison with the Pinus ponderosa foliage, the middle-distance trees in the top photo are at (very roughly) 1:100 scale (on my computer screen). That makes them in the region 8-12m tall.

"a few Coast redwood plantations with natural regeneration ... I don't know of any Sequoiadendron plantations in Britain Resin might know"
Agree on occasional seedlings of Sequoia sempervirens, and none of Sequoiadendron giganteum. Of Sequoiadendron plantations, there's this one I've posted before at Kyloe, Northumbs (trees 43-48m tall):
{{gwi:330110}}
And also various avenues like this one (which shows well the uniformity of growth rate!) at Minsteracres Monastery, Northumbs (trees 30-33m tall):
{{gwi:360011}}

No Sequoiadendron regeneration in either case.

Resin