Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) and its contractors have collected the seeds of the 21 Caledonian pinewoods that the agency looks after.

It is the first time all sites managed by FLS have been visited in single year and is part of the ongoing efforts to safeguard the iconic tree species. Led by FLS Tree Nursery and Seed Resource Manager Kenny Hay, the team managed to successfully collect cones from 20 of the pinewoods.

The extraction of the seed from pine cones will help to protect these forests from the threats of disease and climate change, conserve their unique genetic diversity and support the expansion of native pinewoods for future generations.

Hills, glens and even lochs were crossed between January and April to reach sites ranging from Glen Einig in the north to Glen Orchy in the south and from the Black Wood of Rannoch in the east to the island of Eilean Ruairidh Mòr on Loch Maree in the west.

Kenny said: "Unlike commercial Scots pine seed collection where you can collect from felled crowns, every tree must be climbed to avoid damage of any kind so the progress can be slow.

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"A lot of these pinewoods are not served by the best access so clambering across rank vegetation with all your climbing kit can be a lot of effort. Around 75 sacks of cones were collected with the potential for these cones to provide around 3 million seeds."

The cones were sent down to the Alice Holt Research Centre in Surrey for extraction, processing and storage. It is anticipated they will be returned to the new nursery currently under development at Newton where they will be a fitting first addition to the purpose-built seed store.

There are 84 Caledonian pinewoods in Scotland recognised on the Caledonian Pinewood Inventory (CPI). One of the threats to these important sites comes from the fungal needle blight Dothistroma (DNB) and the presence of DNB in several UK nurseries resulted in a moratorium or temporary suspension on planting within 600 m of the core areas across the CPI sites.

Natural regeneration is currently the only method of expansion for Scots pine in CPI sites. While this has been successful at some larger sites such as Glenmore, for many pinewoods, expansion has been very difficult through natural regeneration alone.

In the intervening years since the moratorium on planting in these pinewoods, positive steps have been taken to reduce and limit the chances of DNB spread and the understanding of DNB also continues to develop. This means the seed source at Newton has the potential to play a vital role in forests with a lack of natural regeneration and could help to safeguard the vulnerable, isolated pinewoods.

Kenny added: "Our pinewoods vary in character and therefore require different management techniques. Factors that impact them include ground vegetation and competition, adjacent seed sources, browsing, altitude, geology, soils, past management, temperature, exposure and rainfall.

"The collecting of seed across the entire range is a very significant step in preserving genetic diversity for the future and this will continue as we aim to build up stocks of these valuable resources."