Plant Material - Project Planning and Management for Ecological Restoration - page 128

Box 8-2. Lesson Learned: Inspection of Plant Materials
A restoration contractor was asked to hold a quantity of contract-grown oak seedlings
over for another year because the restoration site was not ready for installation. Since
the crop of acorns was poor that fall, the decision was made to have the native plant
nursery that had collected the acorns and grown the seedlings keep the plants until
the following spring. The nursery repotted the oak seedlings into larger containers;
however, the restoration contractor failed to inspect the plant materials before they
were transferred into the larger containers. When the young oaks were delivered to
the project site the following spring, they were inspected, looked fine, and were in-
stalled. By the following summer, many of the young trees had died even though they
had adequate irrigation. When the trees were unearthed, it was found that the roots
had encircled on themselves in the original containers prior to being transplanted into
the larger containers. Subsequently, the client made the contractor arrange for new,
healthy oak seedlings and pay for both their growing and installation.
The contractor learned that it is important to inspect plant materials at the nursery
at various stages in the growing process.
Specimen Plant Translocation and Salvage
The option of using well-established vegetation or specimens may become available. The possibil-
ity may arise on projects with remnants of established vegetation or specimen plants (chapter 10).
Typically in such cases, there will be small clusters of trees or shrubs on properties that have been
avoided or where clearing was not required. These can be located between fences, on extreme
edges of property, or in odd-shaped parcels of little use to the landowners. Collection of these
specimens can bring immediate added value to a project.
CANDIDATE SPECIMEN SITUATIONS
Evaluating the candidate specimens is critical for successful translocation. Situations that may
have candidate specimens include the following:
• Isolates left from previous construction activity
• Patches between buildings, roads, or similar structures
• Adjacent or nearby property where vegetation can be removed with owner consent
• Existing material on-site that needs to be removed
• Donor site where material can be harvested periodically
• At or near outlets or culverts where continued growth may cause blockage of water flow
• Patches between railroad tracks, areas protected by fencing (such as roadsides or
abandoned cemeteries), and areas adjacent to agricultural fields that are not tillable by
standard farm equipment
• Sites slated for development