Update #26: Starting the 2025 season! / March 30, 2025

Finally, back at the “office” we like the most! This weekend, we went to Lurë to open the 2025 season. This does not mean that the work starts now and we have been slacking up until now; on the contrary, it has been pretty busy winter for us.

Seed collection

Beginning of February, Imer (our Lurë local coordinator) and 8 workers collected the seeds of Pinus nigra and Pinus heldreichii. It took them 4 days to collect 40kg of pine cones of Pinus nigra (Pishë e zezë) and 17kg of pine cones of Pinus heldreichii (Rrobull) from 20-30 years old mother trees in altitudes between 1,300—1,400m above sea level.

While the pinecones open slowly under the spring sun rays in Lurë, we took some samples to Tirana to evaluate the quality of this year’s seed collection. The cones will slowly open when exposed to the sun and release the seeds hidden inside, this process usually takes 1 to 2 weeks depending on the temperature. Seeds are then extracted from the cones and ready for cleaning and sorting. We are finalizing the cut tests and will share more information on the percentages when we start the stratification process.

Seed evaluation

We worked over the winter to improve our seed collection and processing protocol. We wanted to have better seed origin and habitat information as well as consistent quality evaluation metrics. This will allow us to evaluate seed collections across different locations and identify natural cyclic patterns of conifer cone production.

The seed evaluation has 2 phases, the first uses a sample of cones right after they were collected and focuses on evaluation of codes, number of seeds in the sample and physical attributes.

The second evaluation phase is performed on cleaned and sorted seeds, after cones open. The 2nd phase focuses on attributes such as percentage of healthy seeds after cleaning, germination rate and so on after which the seeds will start stratification process to prepare them for spring planting.

The results of this phase give an estimate about the quality and quantity of the collected seeds and you can find key results in the table below.

Nursery is slowly waking up

On the other hand, the seedlings are slowly waking up from their winter hibernation. They are starting to change into a vibrant green color, and they seem to be strong and healthy. As soon as the majority starts to wake up, we will apply our home brewed organic fertilizer so they have the right nutrients for growing even stronger during spring.

Visiting 2024 planting area

We were curious to check the trees planted in autumn 2024, so we drove up to the planted areas. The road up there has deteriorated during winter, which adds to the challenges of working in that area. However, our working cars do not mind the bad terrain.

The first winter of the little trees planted in October-November 2024 was easy. The trees look healthy and strong despite some of them being planted too deep in the ground. We noticed that the area is home to some forest animals (rabbits, maybe) because we saw a couple of trees eaten by animals. However, this seems not relevant because the trees are not entirely damaged and will get a chance to grow during spring.

Visiting 2021-2022 planting areas

We also checked on the trees planted in 2021-2022, and they are amazingly growing tall and strong. We admit feeling emotional while looking at the baby forest visible from the road.

The spring season has just started, and we have a lot of work ahead of us - building up the Tree nursery in Korçë, planting seeds in Lurë and Korçë, transplanting one-year-old trees into the bigger recyclable trays in Lurë, organizing activities with schools, etc. - so what can we say? Wish us good luck!

On behalf of the whole team,
Pavel