Future of Iowa’s State Forest Nursery uncertain

Changing land use patterns and economic realities have forced the Department of Natural Resources to consider shutting down its nearly 80-year-old state forest nursery.

In the late 1990s the nursery, with plots in Ames and Montrose, was raising and selling more than four million tree and shrub seedlings per year, according to State Forester Paul Tauke.

Driven in part by shrinkage of the Conservation Reserve Program, demand since has fallen to about 1 million seedlings per year, and the DNR is losing more than $500,000 a year on the nursery operations, Tauke said.

'We are supposed to cover our costs. We are examining alternatives because financially we have to,” he said.

One of those alternatives - a potential agreement with Iowa Prison Industries (IPI) - could ensure the continuation of an institution that has produced more than 150 million trees and shrubs to enhance the state's environment.

'We are hopeful that we can make it happen,” IPI Director Dan Clark said.

Calling the nursery 'a pretty important program for inmates,” Clark said from 25 to 50 minimum security inmates work on a seasonal basis at the Ames facility and another 10 to 15 work at the Montrose facility, just a few miles south of the state penitentiary in Fort Madison.

'It's a very good work training program,” he said.

One hurdle involves determining if all the needed seedlings can be raised at Montrose. The biggest hurdle, he said, involves determining if the cold storage facility in Ames can be dismantled and reassembled at Montrose.

If that is not technically and economically feasible, he said, the question becomes whether a new cold storage facility is affordable.

Clark and Tauke said they hope to have the answer before spring planting season arrives.

Nursery's legacy

The 98-acre nursery at Ames was established during the Civilian Conservation Corps era in the late 1930s. The 20-acre Montrose Unit was established in cooperation with the Department of Corrections in 1982.

To see its legacy, 'all you have to do is look at all the 30-, 40- and 50-year-old timber stands that started with state nursery seedlings,” Cedar Rapids forestry consultant Steve Hamilton said.

The state nursery, he said, has been 'a dependable source of high-quality nursery stock with a knowledgeable and accommodating staff.”

Hamilton said he does not think the shutdown, if it comes to that, will cause major hardships for Iowa tree planters.

Private nurseries, in Iowa and other states, will be able to meet the demand, though perhaps at a somewhat higher cost and with less assurance that trees and shrubs have been grown from Iowa ecotype seeds, he said.

But Bob Petrzelka, a private forester with Geode Forestry Inc. in Swedesburg, said the loss of the state nursery would be bad for business.

'We get 90 percent of our seedlings from the state nursery, and our costs will go up more than 35 percent if we have to buy from private sources,” he said.

The higher cost, he said, would translate into 'less tree planting.”

Petrzelka said he thinks demand will rebound with recent lower prices for corn and soybeans.

With high commodity prices, 'a lot of that rough ground that's better suited for timber got planted to row crops,” he said.

'To me, the state can justify keeping it open because all Iowans benefit when a tree is planted through improved water quality and wildlife habitat and enhanced recreation,” Petrzelka said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's latest Forests of Iowa report said the state has almost 2.97 million acres of forest land - down 2.2 percent, or 66,300 acres, since the previous inventory published in 2008.

When Iowa was settled in the mid-1800s, timber covered more than seven million acres.

That coverage fell to 2.6 million acres in the 1950s, and to 1.6 million acres in the 1970s, before rebounding to 2.1 million acres in the 1990s.

It peaked at over 3 million acres a few years ago before starting its current descent.