Trees can hold back the snow, protecting farm and livestock. Trees can provide food and a home for wildlife. Trees break the wind and keep valuable, fertile topsoil in place. Trees even beautify the landscape. However, they can’t complete any of these tasks until landowners put them in the ground.Tree and shrub sales are underway in the Lower Loup Natural Resources District. The trees are sold across the District to landowners seeking to implement windbreaks, wildlife habitat, buffer strips, or other conservation practices in the spring of 2010.
Each tree or shrub is a two-year-old bare root seedling and measures between 10 to 18 inches tall.
All trees and shrubs are priced at 70 cents per seedling plus sales tax.
Each species must be ordered in lots of 25. Property owners can hand plant the trees and shrubs or request the NRD machine plant them. The Lower Loup’s machine planting charge is $50 per one hundred trees. The minimum charge is $100 plus sales tax. The District also provides a spraying service for weed maintenance. The charge is $35 plus $1.75 per hundred feet of row.
Cost-share is available when NRD crews plant buffer strips, and field, livestock, and farmstead windbreaks. Cost-share assistance is also available when planting trees on CRP acres, or for windbreak renovation.
Application for cost-share should be made at your local Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Farm Service Agency (FSA), or the Lower Loup Natural Resources District office. More information is available from the Lower Loup NRD or from your local NRCS office.
The following species listed below are available for planting in 2010. More information is available by clicking on species name in blue.
Conifers: Red Cedar, South Western White Pine, Concolor Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Austrian Pine, Colorado Blue Spruce, Scotch Pine, Pinyon Pine, and Jack Pine.
Hardwoods: Hackberry, Honey Locust, Hybrid Cottonwood, Native Cottonwood, Silver Maple, Black Walnut, Green Ash,Kentucky Coffeetree, Catalpa, Red Oak, Bur Oak, Black Cherry, Harbin Pear, Gambel Oak, and Swamp White Oak .
Shrubs: Cotoneaster, Lilac, Serviceberry, Chokecherry, Nanking cherry, American plum, Skunkbush sumac, Sand cherry, Caragana, Buffaloberry, Elderberry, American hazelnut, Crabapple, Washington hawthorn, Amur maple, Golden currant, Manchurian apricot, Red osier dogwood, False indigo, Diamond willow, and Chokeberry.
Seedlings are sold on a first come, first served basis. Supplies are limited. Conservation tree seedlings are not guaranteed. Contact the NRCS office in your area to get the planning process underway. Getting an early start will ensure you a good species selection.
The Lower Loup NRD Tree Order Form can be filled out on line, printed, and returned to the NRD Headquarters or your local NRCS office.
A booklet, entitled “Conservation Trees for Nebraska,” is available from the Lower Loup NRD and NRDs statewide. It provides detailed information on each variety of tree and shrub sold by NRDs across the state, including a description, planting information, and the area of the state for which the tree is best suited. The booklet is available for download as a pdf
file here.
The Lower Loup NRD conservation tree brochure is available by clicking here.
