|
|
|
The Harrington Tree Nursery is located in the Rouge River Valley between Ottawa and Montreal, half way between the Ottawa River and Mont-Tremblant. Being located at an elevation of 175 metres allows the nursery to count on reliable snow covering during the winter months. The Nursery also benefits from the fact that it is situated in southern Quebec, which means it can count on around 2000 degree-days per year and over 120 frost-free days to grow hardy and healthy seedlings.
Company Profile The Harrington Tree Nursery has been growing high quality seedlings in the Rouge Valley for nearly 50 years. Harrington started as a forestry research centre and the tree nursery continues today to be innovative and in search of excellence in silviculture. The tree nursery grows all of the softwood reforestation species and currently supplies customers in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. Company Vision & Mission Statement To be a leader in forest seedling production through continuous improvement of our growing operations. To support our customers in the long-term goal of establishing productive plantations. Our operating principles:
The Harrington Forestry Centre was founded in 1952 by the Canadian International Paper Company (CIP) as an educational centre to help landowners in the surrounding Rouge River Valley learn about the basic principles of forest management. In 1956, a tree nursery was established to produce bare root seedlings to be sold at cost to valley landowners and used to reforest large areas of barren land that had been unsuccessfully farmed since the end of the 19th century. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, the CIP also co-operated with the Canadian Forestry Service in establishing range-wide white spruce provenance tests, as well as frost hardiness and growth tests for Norway spruce and European larch. In the late 1970’s the need for additional seedling production continued to increase. Based on regeneration surveys, company foresters saw the need to establish full-scale reforestation programs on company freeholds. Containerized seedling production was added to the bare root seedling production capacity at Harrington. Harrington was the first private tree nursery in Quebec to switch to container grown seedlings. In 1980, Harrington implemented a tree improvement program. “Plus tree” selection was carried out in jack pine and black spruce stands in Quebec’s northern regions, and seed orchards were established in Harrington. A white spruce improvement program was undertaken in co-operation with the New Brunswick Tree Improvement Council; grafting was done in Harrington and a clone bank established. A Norway spruce program was undertaken in co-operation with the Canadian Forestry Service, which furnished scions from clones established in provenance tests in southern Quebec. A hybrid larch orchard was also established to have access to a reliable seed supply for this fast growing species. The demand for containerized seedlings continued to increase and in the spring of 1986, the Quebec government and the Harrington Tree Nursery negotiated a large-scale agreement making the Harrington production complex one of the largest in Quebec. The bare root tree nursery activity was discontinued and Harrington concentrated only on containerized seedlings. A two million-dollar capital investment transformed Harrington into a state of the art production complex, and production capacity was increased to 14 million seedlings per year. |