Adaptability

Decades of research have demonstrated that seed from the best tested parents tend to produce good-performing stands even on sites a hundred miles or more from the parents' origin — within the typical range of site environments found below 2000' elevation on the Cascade westside. We have thriving plantings of Weyerhaeuser Select seed across a range from Roseburg Oregon to Campbell River on northern Vancouver Island.

Still, parent trees from different latitudes and elevations are adapted to different growing seasons, and have different seasonal growing cycles. Until you gain some experience on your land with specific improved seed sources, your risk of damage from spring and fall frosts will be reduced if you plant seedlings from a zone within 1-2 degrees of latitude (or less than 150 miles north or south) of your planting site, and within a similar elevation band. Every Weyerhaeuser Select seedlot comes with a detailed listing of the parents making up the lot, their origin location and elevation.

To assure the greatest diversity and versatility, we harvest our orchards by parent tree and blend our seedlots into mixtures of at least 10 parents with no one parent over 15 percent of the lot. For customers interested in the Effective Population Size for the seedlot, this can be calculated as well.

100 percent of the genes represented in Weyerhaeuser Select seed got there naturally through cross-pollination among top performing, well adapted trees in wild stands, in a climate similar to where they are to be planted. No genetic engineering or gene splicing here!