The New Pine Forest

We are almost done with our pine plantings on about 12 acres of our land. We had to act quickly to preserve our agricultural exemption because our citrus grove was declining rapidly. Sometimes the farming is about maximizing yields and returns, and sometimes it is about tax strategies and conserving your cash. We planted on last Saturday after getting our long leaf pines on the Friday night before. The pines came from Andrews Nursery a state of Florida Forestry Nursery. I opted for the long leaf trees because their habitat has dwindled because of their usefulness to man and the lessening of the fires that they have evolved with for thousands of years. They are somewhat slower than the other pines but catch up in later years and have a higher quality wood timber. We have pushed all the citrus trees over to help them dry out and die and have been working for a few months on the tedious process of pushing them into piles to burn. The heavy work of pushing was done on contract with a friend's dad and then we piled them with our tractor. Mostly my Dad has done this work. Then we disked the ground to eliminate weeds. But we have finally burned the last of the trees in the area we are to plant the pines and will be planting tomorrow.

We had the wonderful help of our friends and family to help plant and everybody came out on the coldest day of the year. A record setting day with sleet in the afternoon. That is one of the coldest days I can remember at the farm. It rained and barely got over the mid 30's. We rented a tranplanter machine that cuts the ground with a rolling blade and has a planting shoe where you place the bareroot pine seedling. Then two wheels pack in the soil around the tree. It was able to attach to the good ole Massey 431.

The good news is that we are planting about 9000 pines which we will now refer to as the Andrew Steed Pine Forest at Steed Farms. In acknowledgement to all the hard work that he has done. That is going to be a heck of a lot of carbon sequestration. It was even done organically! It makes me feel great to know that we are being good stewards of our land. I converse with a colleague at work about the fact that so few people take any notice of the environment around them. I had a neighbor walk through about 6 acres of pines to introduce himself and ask what we were doing with the land. It is laughable and quite sad at the same time. He probably stepped on quiet a few newly planted pines to get to me on the tractor.

The farm looks exceptionally large now and so clean. Bare soil and baby pine trees. I love it. Now just wait 30+ years for the trees to grow!