This summer, more than 130 tree planters rose to the challenge of planting thousands of trees each per day. 

Joe Sackett was one of them. An experienced tree planter from Ontario, Sackett was among this year’s top tree planters, planting 180,000 so far this season and on track to plant 220,000 by the season’s close.  His best day saw him plant 6,000 trees. For reference, the standard is 2,000-3,000 trees per day. 

The job is physically demanding, with tree planters having to navigate what can be difficult terrain while being constantly in motion to plant one seedling every six seconds. 

But while Sackett said tree planting is hard work, it’s also rewarding. 

“I like to work outside, and I like this type of work where I can really push myself and I’m rewarded for that,” he said. 

Tree planting is an integral part of the working forest’s continuous cycle of harvest and renewal, with about 20 million seedlings being planted each year. 

“Joe was a reliable, experienced and hard-working planter,” said Ben Lane, Operations Manager of Southern NB Woodlands. “Planters like Joe are the foundation of a successful program, and we would not be successful without planters like him.” 

This summer, Sackett also had the opportunity to take part in the August cone picking season at the Parkindale Seed Orchard. Navigating around the crowns of the trees in lifts, cone pickers pick as many cones as they can – about a hectolitre of seeds per day, or 100 litres. 

“We pick the seeds and they grow seedlings that they end up planting eventually. It’s pretty cool to see the whole thing happening,” Sackett said. 

Once picked, the cones are placed on trays in Parkindale’s cone shed, where they dry out for about nine weeks and are then brought inside a warehouse storage area before winter. During the winter months the cones are dried and tumbled to extract the seeds, going through processes to remove debris and be sized, then sent to the nursery to be sowed. 

“Really it starts with us. We are the base of the woodlands operations,” said Courtney McDonald, Seed Orchard Supervisor at Parkindale Seed Orchard. “The ones that are picking the cones might come back around and end up planting the trees from the cones they picked here.”