Pine cone harvest for seeds скачать в хорошем качестве

Pine cone harvest for seeds

(11 Mar 2019) LEAD IN: Deep in the Nizhny Novgorod forests, it is time for the pine cone harvest. Pine collectors hope this year will be a fruitful forage as for the last three years, this has not been the case. STORYLINE: Workers at a seed growing enterprise are collecting pine cones to extract their seeds. Clasping poles with a hook attached at the end and wearing wooden skis the team head deep into the forest. For the last three years, there has just not been enough cones to pick from the trees. Galina Andreevna, who is head at the Center of Forest Seed Production explains, "the collection of cones occurs at a special site where the cones are mature. We use a hook to bend the branch, collect it in a bucket and then we dry these cones to get seeds." This year, they hope to collect one bucket each day, for which they will be paid 100 RUB ($1.5 USD) by the Russian government. This works out at around just 25 cents per kilogram, which help explains why it is hard to attract people to the job. With a staffing deficit, employees from the enterprise have to venture into the forest themselves. Some of the team work solely from the forest floor. Andreevna says, "we collect them in the winter as the cones have ripened when they change colour from green to brown it means that the cone is ready. It opens better and the seeds mature." While others can be seen up above, lifted by heavy machinery, collecting pines from the top of the trees. "In principle, it turns out that up here you can collect cones faster than the women (collecting cones on the ground) working. Here you can collect more. If they collect a couple of bags, you can collect twice as much up here," explains Vladimir Smirnov, an employee of seed growing enterprise. The cones harvested are immediately sent for processing. First, the cones are dried through a drum. This makes it easier to separate the cone's petals and seeds. Marina Andreeva employee at the Center of Forest Seed Production, explains: "After the dryer, the seeds are mechanically processed by the machine. These are the seeds which look like a sort of wing and I need to remove those wings." The petals themselves will no longer be needed - they are burned and their ash is used as a fertilizer for the seedlings. Due to seeds wing-like outer layer, a pine seed can travel before it settles on the ground. This often is a food source for small rodents, so it has become customary to plant pine trees in central Russia. It takes twelve years for a seed to grow into a pine tree. Deputy director of the Semenovsky Forestry Nursery, Zinaida Gorelova says for the first this year seed reserves have had to be used, as the harvest is cyclical with some years more fruitful than others. "In the Nizhny Novgorod region, for the third year in a row, there is a poor harvest of seeds. This year for the first time we were forced to use our seed reserve." The reserve fund for the Nizhny Novgorod region contains 2.5 million tons of pine seeds. But there may be some hope as these small pines have just begun to sprout. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...