Tahoe Environmental Research Center encourages Tahoe residents to plant the seeds of a healthier, more drought resilient forest in their own backyard
The UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center is offering free sugar pine seedlings to Tahoe residents October 29-31 as part of a restoration project funded by the Tahoe Fund and the California Tahoe Conservancy. The goal of the project is to establish a new generation of genetically diverse sugar pines that can withstand the threats of climate change, including drought and bark beetle outbreaks. By restoring native sugar pines to the area and increasing their genetic diversity, the overall forest will benefit.
Thriving sugar pines with their giant, foot-long cones, once covered a quarter of Lake Tahoe’s forests. Comstock Era logging devastated the population and now they are down to 5% or less. A significant share of their genetic diversity was also eliminated. Over the years, white pine blister rust, bark beetles and drought have impacted those that remain. Drought and bark-beetle infestation killed more than 129 million trees between 2012 and 2016 in the Sierra Nevada.
UC Davis biologist Patricia Maloney and a team of researchers collected seeds from 100 surviving sugar pine trees. These seeds were then used to grow more than 10,000 seedlings. Most of these were planted in the forest along the North Shore of Lake Tahoe. Two thousand seedlings are now available to Tahoe residents to plant in their own backyards.
Residents can pick up the sugar pine seedlings:
Fri October 29
2pm – 5pm
Sat & Sun October 30-31
11am – 2pm
Location:
Tahoe City Field Station
2400 Lake Forest Road
Tahoe City, CA
