Mother Nature is the most wondrous of gardeners, planting and nurturing millions of new trees each year through natural processes. But when timber harvest, fire, or other circumstances arise and Mother Nature, even at her very best, cannot regenerate the forest quickly enough, Michigan's foresters can count on the Department of Natural Resources' Wyman Nursery.

The Wyman Nursery in the Upper Peninsula near Manistique has raised trees for replanting Michigan's forests since 1927. Over the course of its almost 80year history, this facility has produced and distributed almost 190 million young trees for planting across the state. Look at any public forest and chances are some of the trees you will see there were raised from seed with careful oversight by the experts at Wyman.

It makes good sense to operate a tree nursery for state land reforestation. Not only can the most desirable types of trees be nurtured there, but the overall cost to taxpayers is minimized. Each year, Wyman "lifts" and ships millions of trees to create habitat for deer, Kirtland's warblers, and groundnesting birds. The trees from Wyman help to quickly regenerate cutover areas, replant tracts harvested because of disease, and rehabilitate areas scorched by wildfire. It likely would cost a lot more if done any other way.

Department of Natural Resources Forest Technician Tom Burnis loads bins of red pine seedlings freshly pulled from the ground at Wyman Nursery. The seedlings will be transplanted in several state forest locations across Michigan to help regenerate trees after recent timber harvesting. "This nursery is expanding to meet even greater demands," explained Richard Mergener, manager of the Wyman Nursery. "Each year we cut more timber in Michigan and especially the red pine planted by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. That timber is now at maturity, so the press is on to cut and then replant those areas to get them back into a growing timber stand as quickly as possible."

But Wyman was not always a DNR nursery. In its early history, the tree-growing facility actually was operated by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). USFS, looking for a good U.P. site, found the ideal location - 86 acres of sandy alluvial soil, situated on a delta between the Manistique and Indian Rivers, just outside the city limits of Manistique. The property was part of a city park that was never developed. The city donated the tract to the Forest Service in the 1920s and the first crop of trees was established in 1934, including red and jack pine, with lesser amounts of white pine, white spruce, sugar maple, white ash, and white cedar. Later the city donated another 54 acres to the Forest Service to allow the facility to expand to its present size.

The facility was given its present name in 1936 to honor the memory of the late Thomas B. Wyman, known as the father of forest conservation in the Upper Peninsula. He was the founder of the Wyman School of the Woods, started in Munising in 1908. This school had a strong influence in directing public interest in forest conservation and management. Unfortunately, Wyman was forced to close the doors of the school when the majority of the student body was drafted into service during World War I. His school never reopened. At the time of its dedication in the name of Thomas B. Wyman, the nursery was the largest of its kind in the United States.

When the U.S. entered World War II, there was a shortage of rubber. Automobile and tractor tires were rationed for civilian use. Wyman Nursery played a part in a large experiment to produce natural rubber domestically. In the spring of 1942, 70 pounds of koksaghyz (Russian dandelion) was obtained from the Soviet Union and flown to Michigan. Twentythree acres at the nursery were seeded with the Russian dandelion. The Russians have been growing the plant for some time and claimed two million acres in cultivation, producing 50 to 100 pounds of rubber per acre each year. The rubber latex was an extract of the long, tubular taproot of the plant.

It took only one year for the Forest Service to realize that Wyman was not the right place to grow the plant. While production continued at other locations around the country, the effort at Wyman was halted and the Forest Service made the decision to close the nursery for the remainder of the war years. The Forest Service never reopened it. Rather the Department of Conservation (predecessor of the DNR) expressed a desire to use the nursery to grow tree seedlings for planting on state forest lands and took over the operation in 1949.

Much of the next two years was spent upgrading and fixing the facility, and readying the fields for planting. In May 1951, the first nursery crop under DNR management was seeded with a production goal of five million trees, and with special emphasis on white spruce production, both seedlings and transplants.

Today, Wyman's entire annual production of between five and seven million trees is used for the

reforestation of state-owned forests. Five million tree seedlings are enough to plant more than 5,000 acres of land. Michigan's timberland is the fifth largest in the United States, so Wyman plays a crucial role is assuring the good harvesting plans include reforestation provisions. The economic benefits to Michigan's economy are significant, too. More than $12 billion of value added and 200,000 jobs are annually supported statewide through forest-based industries and tourism/recreation. Again, a tree nursery that supports forest harvest is a critical component in the overall picture in sustaining forest-based industries.

Mr. Mergener oversees the annual "lift" each spring. Beginning in April, crews begin the process of gently uprooting the young trees, two to three years old, sorting, counting, packing, and distributing them.

"Each day during the five-week lift cycle, we fill a semi truck with seedlings," he added. The seedlings are rushed to the various locations around the state, and planted before a week has passed between the harvest and the replanting work. Mr. Merenger says it is really important to get those little trees back into the soil as soon as possible so they can benefit from healthy roots, spring rains, and a long growing season. Once all the young trees are lifted and gone, Wyman is transformed as beds are prepared, bedding sites are rotated, and the next crop is sown. This entire highly organized and efficient process is completed by the first of June. Then it's time to irrigate, fertilize, weed and watch over the new emerging crop.

All of this takes cooperation from the public, too. The seeds used to plant the fields at Wyman are collected by citizens who pick up cones and sell them to Wyman at $25 a bushel. Mr. Mergener says he accepts cones from all over Michigan, marks them as to their place of origin, then tries to plant the young trees back into the general areas where the seeds were collected. Looking for a nice way to earn some extra cash in the fall? Contact Wyman Nursery and they can give you the details on how to get involved.

Growing the seedlings in the nursery and out-planting them in properly prepared sites are very important links in establishing a productive stand after a clearcut harvest in the pine forest type. Most of Wyman's production is now jack pine and red pine. Recent research has shown that on an average site, red pine in the Lakes States is up to 25 percent more productive than the pines growing in the southern region of the United States.

More recent efforts toward certifying Michigan's forests have made Wyman an even more important component of the forestry process in Michigan. As increased emphasis focuses on sustainable forests, Wyman will come even further out front and center in its role to help Michigan sustain its already productive and lush forests.

For more information on Wyman Nursery and Michigan's growing and expanding forest resource, visit the DNR Web site, www.michigan.gov/dnr, or contact a local DNR forester. The public also can learn a lot by taking part in Forest Management Unit open houses and compartment reviews. Check out the DNR Web site for information on a compartment review to attend.

At right: Jean Wolfe, a DNR seasonal worker, prunes the roots of red pine seedlings to prepare them for cold storage and eventual shipping to locations around Michigan. The seedlings are placed 500 to a bag in large brown paper bags, then stored in a large walk-in cooler until transported by truck for transplanting. Ms. Wolfe has worked for more than 25 years at Wyman Nursery. (DNR photographs by Mary Detloff)