Moving trees north to save the forests

[Judi Lynn]

Assisted migration could be the only way for some trees to escape the heat.



As the world warms, trees in forests such as those in Minnesota will no longer be adapted to their local climates. That’s where assisted migration comes in.

By John H. Tibbetts 03.06.2024

On a brisk September morning, Brian Palik’s footfalls land quietly on a path in flickering light, beneath a red pine canopy in Minnesota’s iconic Northwoods. A mature red pine, also called Norway pine, is a tall, straight overstory tree that thrives in cold winters and cool summers. It’s the official Minnesota state tree and a valued target of its timber industry.

But red pine’s days of dominance here could fade. In coming decades, climate change will make red pine and other Northwoods trees increasingly vulnerable to destructive combinations of longer, warmer summers and less extremely cold winters, as well as droughts, windstorms, wildfires and insect infestations. Climate change is altering ecological conditions in cold regions faster than trees can adapt or migrate.

Palik, a forest ecologist with the US Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service Northern Research Station, stops and points to a newcomer under the red-pine canopy: a broadleaf deciduous tree, bitternut hickory, as high as an elephant’s eye at about 10 feet tall and eight years old. “It’s doing really well,” he says.

This bitternut hickory probably shouldn’t be thriving in the Cutfoot Experimental Forest in north-central Minnesota, near Grand Rapids. It likely began as a seedling in a nursery in Illinois, to the south, where deep freezes are less extreme. Normally, if a southern-adapted seedling is planted in an unsuitably cold climate like this one, it can risk frost damage and its survival is threatened. But the newcomer’s lush, green foliage exudes good health.

More:
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2024/forest-assisted-migration-climate-change

[Martin68]

1. Makes a lot of sense. This would happen naturally but very slowly if left for nature to handle.

Starting the process sooner significantly speed up the process and result in less disruption as species that can't handle the heat die off. Might be a little tricky, though, as moving species too far north too soon will result in failure when cold snaps hit, which will happen.

[NickB79]

2. I'm doing the same thing on my land just south of the Twin Cities

I started out finding and propagating the rare survivors I could find here, grown in sheltered locations across southern MN. Tupelo, tulip poplar, pawpaw, pecan, shagbark hickory, shingle oak, etc. Then I started ordering seed from areas in upstate New York, Vermont, etc to trial out here. A friend sent me 500 seeds from his American persimmon orchard in Madison, WI. Now I'm actively planting seedlings from the Missouri DNR's State Nursery, grown 400 miles south of me. Sweetgum, bald cypress, Osage orange, flowering dogwood.

Almost all of them are thriving here, which is both thrilling and terrifying.

Starting this fall, I'll be selling seedlings locally for a few dollars each, just enough to cover expenses. My hope is that I distribute tens of thousands of seedlings over the next couple of decades to stay one step ahead of climate change.