Our third day at Dundreggan was spent in the nursey.
Contrary to the estate work we were doing, the nursery is a well-oiled operation.
In the morning Jill gave us a tour of the trees for life nursery.
The process began with a justifiably militant bio-security process where we scrubbed our boots with disenfectant and washed down our clothes.
The nursery comprised several regimented beds on the outside for tree saplings, and, several polytunnels for various purposes.
The highlight being the Aspen polytunnel, where the team were trying to induce Aspen to reproduce.
Aspen have two means of reproduction, they create clones of themselves through "suckers".
This method allows them to colonise new areas from just a single seed but has the disadvantage of a loss of genetic diversity.
In the wild Aspen don't reproduce annually, rather something triggers the process on a sporadic basis.
It is known that when plants are stressed they will, perhaps paradoxically, put a lot of energy into reproduction.
Perhaps sensing that the end is near, they invest their energy on producing a seed source for the next generation.
In order to attempt to induce this state, the nursery has a polytunnel full of trees that have been stressed - e.g. they have their bark peeled off.
It will be fascinating to visit the site in years to come to see if the project has been a success.

After the talk I elected to help out in the packing shed.
Here, plants that have been growing in reusable plastic pots are carefully extracted.
The roots of the plug plants are snipped with sheers. It is better to snip them in this way rather than to risk them being pulled or torn which causes more harm to the plant.
The plugs are then arranged in bundles of 15 and then wrapped in celophane to keep them together and lock in their moisture.
As I have used these bundles as a product in tree planting sessions it was fascinating to see this process and I elected to spend the afternoon doing the same task.