University of Idaho Extension will offer an all-day white pine restoration workshop June 13 in Sandpoint.

“It used to be the major species in the Inland Northwest, especially in North Idaho,” said Chris Schnepf, UI Extension forestry area educator. “In fact, some places they still call it Idaho white pine.”

Western white pine is the state tree of Idaho.

Many timber companies moved to the region harvesting white pine, he said.

“There’s a historical and cultural significance,” Schnepf said. “Ecologically, it’s more resistant to root disease than the species that tended to replace it, like douglas fir and grand fir. It’s kind of a keystone for the panhandle.”

The non-native fungus white pine blister rust helped devastate the species.

White pine currently occupies less than 5% of its historic dominance, Schnepf said.

“It still reproduces in the woods, in certain circumstances you can find it,” he said. “But it’s much less present than it was historically.”

Arguably, one of the reasons there is so much root disease now is because of the shift to other tree species, Schnepf said.

Restoration methods

One way to restore white pine is to plant seedlings that are resistant to blister rust, Schnepf said. They’ve been bred over the past 50 years from many different white pine sources in the Inland Northwest.

Those trees were bred naturally, entirely from existing regional white pine trees, he said.

Blister rust has a “complex” life cycle, but the stage that infects white pine needs 100% humidity to successfully infect the tree’s branches.

When the bottom 10 feet are pruned, where humidity is highest, survival increases by half, Schnepf said.

Some forest owners are pruning the resistant trees, estimating that might boost survival by 75%, he added.

Potential markets

White pine used to be the most valuable species in the woods, up until about 20 years ago, Schnepf said.

“We’ve lost a lot of the markets for white pine because (they) have gone to other species because white pine wasn’t available,” he said. “But the folks I’ve talked to in the industry, they say if we had the supply, we could rebuild those markets pretty easily.

White pine has wood properties quite different from any of the other species out there,” he said. “It’s a really valuable tree.”

The program runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  June 13 at UI’s Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center and includes an afternoon field trip. The program accommodates up to 30 people. The program is eligible for four Society of American Foresters continuing forestry education credits, three Idaho pesticide recertification credits and six Idaho Pro-Logger credits. There is a $20 registration fee.

For questions, contact the UI Extension office in Bonner County at 208-263-8511. The program is co-sponsored by UI Extension, the Idaho Department of Lands and the U.S. Forest Service.

To learn more

Online: https://www.uidaho.edu/extension/forestry/calendar?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D182809478