Skimikim had to close their Surrey greenhouse operations that had been growing trees since the 1960s. “We’re probably not as hard put as eastern Canada,” said Jim Kusisto, but the workload at Skimikim is clearly reduced, “We shipped 275 million seedlings about three years ago, this year we will ship 185 millions seedlings. We’ve lost millions of seedlings in sales in the past three years.”
All areas of the province are harvesting less timber, mills are shutting, “Its way down and mills are closing,” said Kusisto. “All of the towns of the B.C. interior are tied to the forest industry and stores are closing on main streets, every month one or two more.”
Kusisto agreed that wood pellet manufacture and use of forest waste and biomass, these are new directions for an industry that faces a full blown mountain pine beetle disaster in B.C.. “There are hundreds of thousands of trees standing that have already exceeded their life expectancy,” dead pine trees standing or leaning all over the forests of B.C., and Jim gets to see them up close.
The forests of B.C. have been painted a different colour from the normal constant verdant; where once was a constant bright green, instead great red swatches cover long mountain slopes from Houston to Burns Lake, from Prince George to Merritt. It’s a patchwork of dead trees, some standing red and dying, amid thriving spruce or fir. Other pine vistas provide consistent ruination from the top to bottom of a mountain slope. In the face of all the tumult in the B.C. and Canadian forest industry, “Silviculture has not been ignored,” said Kusisto. But let’s face it, “There are limitations on what you can do to remediate a problem this big. This is off the scale in terms of what we’ve ever done before.”
In the forestry industry they’ve encountered what amounts to a perfect storm, “Massive amounts of wood to harvest with no market to sell to and everything in the economy going against us,” thus more than a few have scaled down operations.
Skimikim closed Surrey greenhouse operations that had 20 employees. Kusisto said the time was right for most of the people concerned because the median age in the Surrey operation was older, most were at or near retirement.
The operation near Salmon Arm has a more diversified workforce of about 12 to 15 employees. “We are confident that we are going to go on. This year’s contracts look okay. The problem is margins are going to hell as the cost of fertilizer rises and hydro bills increase on greenhouse operations. We did get a break on natural gas this year,” and indoor growing occurred with cost-efficiencies this past winter.
The main goal in this economy is to keep the quality of their product up, “You are trying to maintain market share,” and ensure that word of mouth about the Skimikim seedlings is all positive. Good business relations with First Nations also help, “We got a later order from Lower Nicola First Nation this spring.”
\The problem now is finding pine seed, “Pine seed is a valuable commodity right now,” said
Kusisto. With all the pine in the province dead there is a huge volume demand for pine seed, “and more mixed species planting with pine and spruce, even pine and Douglas Fir. Not to say we’re out of seed, but those who own it are nervous about selling it right now.”
Cone orchards are needed, in fact, “It’s a 25 year commitment to invest in cone orchards, and it takes years to collect on that investment. We do grafts and create orchard seedlings by the thousands. You graft the pine strip to a root stock and produce a highly favorable pine tree for cone production.”
They did 2,500 grafts this year for cone orchards in B.C. and Alberta. The goal is to produce a bigger, better self-pruning pine tree that grows bigger and produces ‘clear’ wood,” wood without blemishes and knots. “You pick grafts that will produce taller, straighter, self-pruning trees that will deliver clear wood.”
\Bigger trees with better volumes of usable timber means the province can adjust future Annual Allowable Cuts upwards without adversely affecting the balance of volume in the forest.
