Seedling Storage in Refrigerator Cars

For 2 years foresters on the Yazoo-Little Tallahatchie Flood Prevention Project have been storing loblolly pine seedlings in railroad refrigerator cars during the winter planting season to keep them from overheating or freezing. The seedlings are stored in the kraft- polyethylene bags or Forest Service bales in which they arrive from the nursery. They are held for varying periods before planting, on a first-in, first-out basis. In 1963, 25,445,000 seedlings were successfully handled at a cost of $0.22 per thousand. Nine cars were required for an average of 96 days. An added innovation was the moving, by refrigerator car, of nearly 2 million seedlings from the Ashe Nursery near Hattiesburg to Holly Springs in northern Mississippi.

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Author(s): Hamlin L. Williston

Publication: Tree Planters' Notes - Issue 65 (1964)