Goal: 1,000 volunteers to plant 15,000 trees
October 19, 2024, a Saturday
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The October 19, 2024, event is what it’s all about, read on!
This blog post describes the behind-the-scenes preparation, getting 15,000 trees sprouted, growing and ready for planting each year.
Background: Under the auspices of the newly formed Rio Grande Valley chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT), members of this new chapter were invited to an open house at the American Forests Marinoff Nursery. The invitation was extended to members of the two Valley Texas Master Naturalist chapters, the South Texas Border Chapter and the Rio Grande Valley Chapter; Cameron County and Hidalgo County Master Gardeners; and local native plant growers.
Marinoff Nursery is nearly next to Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, south of Alamo, Texas. The address is 7420 S. Stewart Road, Alamo, TX. It's not an ordinary nursery; it’s not open to the public – instead of customers, they periodically welcome volunteers.
The big volunteer opportunity is the October 19 tree planting event, the Rio Reforestation, as mentioned above. It is not at the nursery but at a restoration site: Milagro Tract, which is at 904 W. Doffin Road, in San Juan, Texas. See the flyer below.
Texas residents, members of local organizations and school children and teachers are involved in planting the trees each year. This is the 30th year of the Rio Reforestation event. Signing up for this event is via this link:
Texas Master Naturalist members of the South Texas Border Chapter are also welcome to volunteer to lead small teams of planters. Those interested may contact South Texas Border Chapter member, River Rivera, after they sign up online at the above link, a necessary step to be included in the food count. Team leaders information will be forthcoming from Mylen Arias, American Forests Senior Manager for Community Resilience, and a training will be scheduled in the near future.
The Marinoff Nursery is a federal operation. It is owned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and managed by American Forests. https://www.americanforests.org/ The Nursery includes a seed orchard, warehouse for seed storage and processing, and raised planters for planting seeds and growing plants.
There may be some volunteer opportunities before and after the October 19 event, at the nursery. The nursery is a government facility through their partners at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, therefore, volunteers are required to sign a volunteer service agreement form each time they enter the premises. In addition, they may opt to also sign a photo release form. Currently, volunteers interested in helping to support the nursery’s mission would be considered on a case basis, according to Mylen Arias, who can be reached at this e-mail address: marias@americanforests.org.
About 50 people attended the July 12 open house at the nursery. We were divided into manageable groups of eight to 12 and taken round to the four operations stations to learn about the nursery’s operations.
Preparing the medium. My group first learned how the propagation tubes are prepared. South Texas Border Chapter member Rosa Elena Flores demonstrates the pully mechanism for the equipment that packs the soil in the growing tubes.
As you can imagine, the box of 64 tubes, when full of soil, is hoisted and dropped several times, thereby packing the soil to the appropriate denseness for the seeds to germinate and root systems to develop.
Collecting seeds. Fruit and seeds can be hand-picked or for branches out of reach, a stick is useful for knocking fruit into a bucket, as demonstrated on a branch of a brasil tree in the photograph on the left below. Below center, brasil berries turn black when ripe. The photo on the right shows several ripe hog plum berries. Seed collecting is a continual task as seeds ripen for best collection at different times.
The Nursery’s orchard has some interesting shrubs and trees; not your usual suspects that readily come to mind when we think of native trees, like anacua, Texas mountain laurel, ebony and mesquite – all grand native trees of course, but the trees encouraged in the facility’s orchard include noteworthy shrubs, like amargosa, Castela erect; Berlandier's wolfberry, Lycium berlandieri; brasil, Condalia hookeri; hog plum, AKA: Texas snakewood, Colubrina texensis; and snake eyes, Phaulothamnus spinescens.
Interestingly, Berlandier’s wolfberry, our guide noted, is a keystone plant. Keystone native plants provide vital sources of food and shelter to other species; they provide the highest level of resources for the species that support the food web.
The third station: Germinating and planting seeds and transplanting germinated seeds.
Jennifer Baez, below left, Manager of the Nursery Operations Resilient Forests, Rio Grande Valley, demonstrates planting colima seedlings, using a small tool to first make a hole in the soil.
South Texas Border Chapter Texas Master Naturalists Rosa Elena Flores and Jose Palmos, above center, quickly became experts at planting ebony seeds, developing their own rhythm while South Texas Border Chapter Texas Master Naturalist River Rivera, above right, planted colima seedlings. A tedious-seeming job to some of us that others found relaxing.
Plants coming along nicely for the big planting event are seen in the background in the above three photos.
For those of us not blessed with an abundance of patience, the final station looked to be a lot more fun and not as repetitious as planting seeds and seedlings.
Processing seeds for storing. Different seeds require different handling. Part of the seed preparation may require the pulp that surrounds the seeds to be removed.
American Forests Rio Grande Valley Semillas Compartidas (Shared Seeds) Initiative Coordinator Michael Navarro, a soil scientist by trade, demonstrated cleaning Texas persimmon seeds. The cleverly designed apparatus provided a unique hands-on experience and although not a very swift task, it’s an active process with sizable results – and less laborious than hand cleaning each seed.
An added attraction for me was playing in the water. The station is configured so the water drains to a fence row of native plants. The vegetative debris also is collected and recycled.
The orchard on the compound is not the only source of seeds for the nursery. The Marinoff Nursery, along with a network of local external growers, are awarded permits by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to collect seeds, which allows them to harvest seed from approved areas across the Valley.
Seed storage. Currently, seeds are stored for seven years in cold storage. Seed planted this year are from 2018, 2019 and 2024. They used older and fresh seed depending on the species they are growing. Ongoing research will help with seed viability and germination.
The collaborative goals of the Rio Grande Valley American Forests Marinoff Nursery, along with local external native plant growers, in collaboration with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will deliver about 200,000 native plant seedlings for planting across the Rio Grande Valley this year.
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