Tree Cooperative Schedules Conference

For more than two decades, they have been collecting cones, planting seedlings, looking for heartier, faster-growing, disease-resistant trees.

And next week, the Inland Empire Tree Improvement Cooperative will hold its 25th anniversary meeting in Coeur d’Alene. The March 11 gathering will bring top-of-the line experts to talk about tree breeding, forest plantations, and the future of farming wood fiber - all key as private timberlands play a growing role in supplying wood products.

The one-day conference will be held at the Coeur d’Alene Resort.

The cooperative includes 21 members that manage more than 16 million acres of forest in the Inland Northwest. They include Inland Empire Paper Co., Crown Pacific, Louisiana Pacific, Idaho Forest Industries, state and federal foresters and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and area universities.

One spinoff of the cooperative’s $9 million efforts are attempts to bring back the white pine. Inland Empire Paper, for example, is planting thousands of blister-rust resistant seedlings on its 110,000 acres.

, DataTimes