Plains Tree Orchard

photos & story by Michael Beall

Early on a mid October day, morning

mist and frost coat acres of trees on the banks of the Flathead River outside Plains, Montana, as Dale Reller and Kent Bachmann prepare for the final few weeks of work on the Lolo National Forest tree farm, a coniferous tree orchard that uses genetics to regenerate stronger forests.

To most seniors, retirement is the obvious option, but for Reller and Bachmann, retirement landed them into a second career. The life-long friends began working at the orchard in 2008, the same year Reller sold his cut-stock plant that he and his brother co-owned for 37 years in Thompson Falls.

“When I retired I asked myself, now what am I going to do?” Reller said. “So I went back to work.”

The Lolo National Forest Service bought the 120 acres where the farm resides in 1992 and it is one of six similar establishments in the Northwest. Today, the farm is home to five native Montana coniferous trees: Douglas Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Western Larch, Lodge Pole Pine and White Bark Pine, accounting for more than 5,500 trees.

From April 15th to October 21st, Reller and Bachmann drive the half-hour commute into Plains from Thompson Falls to maintain the trees, juggling between water and mowing duties, laying pipes and planting rootstocks.

Reller and Bachmann’s job is only a small part in the Forest Service’s operation. Valerie Walker, the Tree and Timber Stand Improvement Manager for the Lolo National Forest, organizes the orchard’s process from the farm and back into the forest.  “The idea is that we are planting better seedlings than if we would find seeds in the woods. It’s an attempt to get improved seeds that produces better, survives better, grows better,” Walker said.

The cycle begins in the woods, where foresters search for healthy trees to produce strong lumber and take cone samples, explained Walker. The seeds are then planted and grown in a controlled environment, so the foresters can keep track of all the half siblings from a specific mother in the forest. They keep track of up to 8,000 seedlings in a certain test, and judge each seedling based on height, diameter and disease resistance.

“The parents and offspring get rated, as here is the best parent tree and here are the very best offspring, and those are the samples we pick to include in our breeding program,” Walker said. “We bring the vegetative material in and graft it to a rootstock, so you are getting 100 percent of the genetic characteristics you are selecting for.”

“Planting comes first. We always have new plantings,” said Reller. “It’s usually about a 1,000 trees, but sometimes 2,000 a year. Then it’s about stretching pipes and maintaining the zones, but that’s a full time job for a couple of old guys.”

Each morning begins by turning on the water tank that pumps hundreds of gallons a second throughout 120 acres. Reller and Bachmann’s day continues by managing the water, checking if the pipes are stable, along with keeping the farm mowed.  “About an hour before quit time, we turn the water off and close those zones and open the zones that we want to do the next day, and then we do it all over again,” Reller said.

Each new tree receives five gallons of extra water with growth hormones to give the rootstocks a boost to survive the first few years of growth. It’s only been over the last few years that the Plains district tree farm has produced mature enough samples to send to the main nursery in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

During the previous years, the focus was on designing the orchard and planting, and only within the last two years the orchard has been moving into a maintenance phase, where the trees are being trimmed and topped. “If you think like an apple orchard,” Walker explained, “you want the crowns down, so you can collect the fruit. Even the prettiest trees, we whack them down, so they’re not as pretty anymore.”  

This fall Reller and Bachmann pulled two bushels of Ponderosa Pine seed and six bushels of Lodgepole to be planted in deforested areas in Northern Idaho, so the farm is looking to become more productive in the near future.

As autumn progresses towards the winter months, Reller and Bachmann now retire back home with their families for six months and wait for spring to thaw the farm again. “I have 20 acres, a dog, a cat and horses at home…so I keep busy; my wife keeps me pretty busy,” Reller said. “We’ll be back by the middle of April and that’s a good incentive to work, because you just paid your taxes.”