GovWire

Summary

The information in this document was gathered through informal interviews and visits to 15 forest nurseries. The nurseries views presented here have been compiled by the Forestry Commission into the present report.

Overall, forest nurseries regard the past few seasons as very positive. Despite some weather-related issues and difficulty sourcing labour, their sales have generally been going up for a few years, thanks to the increased interest in tree planting. Nurseries are at the same time conscious that this current interest is no guarantee of high plant demand in the medium and long term. For this reason, most of their recent investments have been towards enhanced sustainability and efficiency, and expansion has been moderate.

The most pressing issues all nurseries are facing are:

1. seed procurement
2. shortage of labour
3. uncertainty about demand
4. difficulty sourcing seed from the required provenances

Increasing the share of forward-contracting (contract-growing) could be a way of addressing some of the points above.

Work on estimating demand is underway but proving to be challenging, especially for assessing restock numbers across Great Britain (GB).

Seed

Nurseries had no hesitation in naming seed procurement as their major risk. The issues facing seed are multiple and are detailed below.

Seed sources

Despite the Forest Reproductive Materials (FRM) Register of Basic Material currently listing 467 seed sources in GB, many of these stands are not in use and/or difficult to access. There is a clear need to increase the quality (=ease of access to seed crop), number, and variety (both in species and provenance zones) of seed sources available, if we want to ensure a resilient and genetically diverse seed supply.

Cyclical variations in seed production (i.e., mast years) are a natural phenomenon. A mitigation measure for this is to collect large amounts of seed in bumper years, and then storing it; however this is not always possible. Some species (oak, sweet chestnut, sycamore etc.) cannot be stored for more than a few months without critical loss of quality. This can lead to fluctuations in the market for the above species.

When seed crop is available and accessible, there are sometimes difficulties in sourcing the manpower to collect it. Professional seed collectors are often self-employed, and because of the seasonal nature of the job, it is not a profession which appeals to many.

Seed market

There is only one substantial private seed trader for forest seeds in GB. It is perceived that this creates a risk both in economic terms as well as for the sectors resilience. Multiple nurseries already have reported not being able to source all the GB seed they had planned for in the past season.

Other ways to source seed available to nurseries are:

• public sector (currently limited to Sitka spruce, Scots pine, and Lodgepole pine)
• importing seed
• collecting their own seed (usually contracting professional seed collectors)

The nursery sector recognises its dependability on seed procurement, and many nurseries have either started or increased their own seed collections in an effort to reduce their seed supply risks. Because the number of professional seed collectors is limited, however, even this route is not always viable; and only a few nurseries currently have seed processing capabilities. For the other nurseries, seed processing would still have to be outsourced.

Imports

A few nurseries have reported difficulties in sourcing seed from the EU in the last couple of seasons, both in terms of responsiveness, availability, and quality. With the EU having set their own ambitious planting targets, it is not surprising that the GB is struggling to import seed. While imports are overall a low percentage of the total seed circulating in GB (only 2% (in weight) of the seed registered with FRM 01/11/2021-30/10/2022 was imported, data not published), some species heavily rely on imports.

Public sector

Nurseries have shown a strong appetite for Forestry England to take on a more meaningful role in seed supply, especially as a way of de-risking the current reliance on a single UK supplier. Nurseries would particularly like to see Forestry England provide a large quantity and variety of broadleaf seed, as was the case a few decades ago. The new seed extractory at Delamere nursery will have capacity to process additional broadleaf seed, however this will only be sold to nurseries if they have been unable to procure it elsewhere. This clause was added to minimise interference in the private market, but does not apply to the species currently already supplied.

Labour

Shortage of labour has been an issue for a few years, and has been felt even more dramatically since the EU exit. Almost all nurseries rely on agency workers throughout the busy season (winter), particularly for grading trees before dispatch. Grading has repeatedly been reported to be the primary bottleneck in the nursery industry, both in bareroot and in container production.

Automation

Problems with labour availability have been the main driver behind the push for automation. Some nurseries have invested to partially automate grading, transplanting, and have even switched to different methods of growing. There is an understanding in the sector that the issues with labour are not temporary, and it would be unsustainable in the long-term to keep relying on manual labour where tasks can be automated. This does of course require considerable investments. It should be noted that, since forest nurseries are a niche industry, new machinery is almost always made to order rather than off-the-shelf. This brings its own issues of higher costs, longer lead times, prototype functionality etc. Bareroot nurseries are by design considerably more difficult to automate compared to container nurseries.

Skilled workers

Skilled workers have been identified by some as another area where the sector falls short. Being a small industry, it is difficult to find experienced growers with specific forest nursery knowledge. Horticulture growers have transferable experience and knowledge, but do not seem to be attracted by the forest nursery sector, or perhaps are not aware of it.

The issue of attracting younger skilled workers into the sector is perceived differently across the nurseries. Some felt that the growing interest in green jobs has brought some valuable young people to the sector, while others thought that it gave people the wrong expectations (i.e., an almost bucolic job). Likewise, some businesses have expressed some concern at this knowledge/generational gap, while others are confident in their succession planning.

Climate change and earlier planting

Lifting (harvesting) in bareroot nurseries is done while saplings are dormant. This is roughly between November and February, but is highly dependant on weather. Wetter, warmer winters such as we have seen in recent years, reduce the lifting window, further exacerbating the labour issue.

Lifting (harvesting) in bareroot nurseries is done while saplings are dormant. This is roughly between November and February, but is highly dependant on weather. W

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