Good news for forest landowners who want to plant white spruce this spring; we now have some 3-year-old white spruce seedlings available!

When the DNR reforestation program’s seedlings went on sale this past October, there was a smaller quantity of white spruce seedlings available for purchase than usual. A long, cold, snowy winter in 2018 at our seedling nursery in Boscobel and a cool, wet spring combined to adversely impact our newly germinating and young white spruce seedlings. White spruce is also one of our best sellers, as landowners enjoy the white spruce’s resistance to deer browse, moderate growth, tolerance to some shade and ability to grow in many soil types. This combination of low supply and high demand meant the available trees sold out quickly.

However, we recently learned that Minnesota DNR has a surplus of white spruce, so we were able to acquire some of their extra inventory for our customers. Wisconsin statutes allow for the exchange of seedlings between other state and USDA Forest Service nurseries as long as the seed used to grow the seedlings is appropriate for Wisconsin. In this case, the white spruce seed was from southern Minnesota and the seedlings are very appropriate for planting in Wisconsin.

The only caveat is that the Minnesota nursery is quite far north so the spruce seedlings will be available later in the spring, probably early May. If you would like to purchase white spruce or any other tree or shrub seedlings, please visit us at https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/TreePlanting/ or contact our nursery staff at (715) 424-3700.