Tennessee opens seedling orders Sept. 1

The state nursery pairs nearly a century of reforestation history with affordable seedlings for today’s landowners

2:28 p.m. Aug. 31, 2026

DUANE CROSS
MCO Publisher•Editor

Before there is a stand of oak shading a creek, a pine plantation ready for harvest, or a hardwood bottom thick with deer and turkey, there is usually something far less impressive: a seedling.

Bare roots. A thin stem. Maybe a few inches tall.

But Tennessee has been betting on those little trees for nearly a century, and beginning Tuesday, landowners can put some of them to work on their own ground.

The Tennessee Department of Agriculture Division of Forestry will open orders from its East Tennessee Nursery at 8 a.m. CT on Tuesday, Sept. 1. Orders will be accepted through March 15, 2027, or until supplies are gone.

More than three dozen native hardwood, pine, and shrub species will be available, including white oak, shagbark hickory, shortleaf pine, persimmon, and hybrid chestnut.

Species suited for streambank restoration will also be offered, including buttonbush, water tupelo, baldcypress, and swamp white oak.

“ETN gives landowners, municipalities, and organizations across the state an affordable way to restore and strengthen their rural and urban forests,” State Forester Heather Slayton said. “Efforts to plant trees contribute to the resilience of our state’s forests and the stabilization and revitalization of streambanks heavily impacted by Hurricane Helene.”

It is work measured in decades rather than days, and Tennessee has been at it for a long time.

From gullies to forests

The roots of Tennessee’s reforestation program reach back well before most of the forests standing today.

Poor farming practices during the early 20th century left parts of the state scarred by erosion and deep gullies, particularly in West Tennessee. J.O. Hazard, Tennessee’s second state forester, believed tree planting could help repair the damage.

During the Civilian Conservation Corps era from 1934 to 1942, millions of trees went into the ground across Tennessee. Demand for seedlings grew so quickly that the state established several nursery sites to keep pace.

Tennessee purchased the 310-acre Pinson Nursery in Madison County in 1947, consolidating production from smaller operations. In 1959, the Division of Forestry partnered with the University of Tennessee to begin improving the genetic quality of seedlings produced for landowners.

The nursery at Delano in Polk County began production in 1989. Cooperative work with Auburn University and North Carolina State University later gave Tennessee foresters access to better research and improved seed stock.

Today, the East Tennessee Nursery at Delano is the Division of Forestry’s only operating nursery.

It sits on roughly 500 acres beside the Hiwassee River, where employees plant, cultivate, harvest, and prepare millions of seedlings each year. Around 40 acres are typically devoted to seedling production, while other seedbed acreage is rotated into cover crops to maintain soil productivity.

The nursery has historically produced roughly 6-7 million seedlings per growing season and served hundreds of customers across Tennessee.

Since the 1950s, Tennessee’s reforestation program has produced more than 1 billion tree seedlings.

Raised for Tennessee ground

Seed used to produce the annual crop comes from commercial vendors, Division of Forestry seed orchards and production areas, and wild stands. Nearly all originates within 50 miles of Tennessee’s borders.

That helps produce seedlings suited to the soils and climate where most of them will eventually be planted.

Decades of tree-improvement work have also produced seedlings selected for stronger growth, survival, and disease resistance. Historical Division data show pine seedlings offered about a 25% productivity gain compared with seedlings available three decades earlier.

Over a timber rotation, those gains can mean more wood and more return from the same acres.

Timber, water, wildlife, and more

There is money in Tennessee’s woods.

Forests supply sawmills, paper and fiber manufacturers, furniture makers, loggers, truckers, and other businesses, particularly across rural parts of the state.

A 2010 Division of Forestry analysis helps put the scale into perspective. That year, Tennessee grew 4.6 million pine seedlings and 1.5 million hardwood seedlings — enough for more than 14,000 acres of planting.

About 11,000 of those acres were planted with pine, primarily for fiber and timber production. The Division estimated the mature value of those plantings at more than $22 million in then-current dollars. Another $1 million was estimated to have gone to planting contractors and other forestry-service businesses.

Many hardwood plantings are aimed at conservation as much as timber. They can improve wildlife habitat, stabilize streambanks, restore wetlands, and help control erosion.

Forests also help protect drinking-water supplies by slowing runoff, holding soil in place, and filtering water before it reaches streams.

On the same tract, a planting can protect a creek, improve habitat, and add long-term value to the property.

Serving ground big and small

The state nursery also fills a gap private nurseries cannot always cover.

A landowner may need a few hundred trees instead of tens of thousands. He may want a particular native hardwood, a tree suited for wet ground, or seedlings intended more for habitat than timber production.

Location, species, delivery costs, and order size can make it difficult for large commercial growers to serve smaller customers. The state nursery helps fill that gap.

Its seedlings have been used in timber plantations, wildlife habitat projects, stream restoration, mine reclamation, public lands, and forestry research.

Some have also been grown for studies aimed at developing an American chestnut capable of surviving the blight that nearly wiped the species from Eastern forests. Others simply end up on family farms and woodlots across Tennessee.

Help paying for the planting

For some landowners and municipalities, help is available with the cost.

The ProMark program, formerly the D’Addario program, supports the sustainability of Tennessee hickory and oak. Huber Engineered Woods LLC provides funding toward loblolly pine 2.0 seedlings. Qualifying Tree City USA municipalities can purchase 200 seedlings, bundled by species at 100 per species.

Requirements vary, and some programs require a forest management plan. Landowners interested in ProMark or Huber assistance should contact their local Division of Forestry area forester, while municipalities seeking information about the Tree City USA program can contact Ashley Kite-Rowland at Ashley.Kite-Rowland@tn.gov.

For everybody else, the process is straightforward: choose the right species, pick the right ground, and get them planted.

Then comes the waiting.

Forestry runs on a longer clock than most of us are used to. The oak planted this winter may shade somebody else’s porch. The pine put into an old pasture may not be harvested until a child is grown. A streambank restored today may protect water for people who never know who planted the trees.

Tennessee has been making those long-term investments since Civilian Conservation Corps crews planted trees in gullied ground nearly a century ago.

Sometimes the best thing you can leave behind starts with a hole in the ground and a tree small enough to carry in one hand.

• Order: store.planttntrees.tn.gov