Back in 2020, Roger Worthington, owner of Worthy Brewing and President of the Worthy Garden Club started Operation Appleseed — an initiative to plant one million trees in forests across Oregon that had been impacted by wildfire. In 2022, that initiative ended.
Since that time we’ve received a number of questions about the status of “Appleseed” and why we chose to end the effort before reaching the goal of one million trees.
The original objective was to maximize carbon storage in forests as one method of addressing a rapidly changing climate. Although Appleseed was one method of addressing climate concerns, a greater understanding of climate science shifted our focus. The following discussing summarizes the decision. It was written to answer a question from the New York Times during their review of an opinion piece Roger submitted for publication. Enjoy.
Carbon capture is directly related to biomass production — growth rate — both above and below ground. Young trees do absorb carbon at a rapid rate through photosynthesis, the process of converting sunlight, water, and carbon into biomass. The growth rate of older trees slows much like metabolic rates in humans, but the greater mass of large trees stores more carbon than younger trees. As trees age, they become net carbon sinks. But that’s not only because they’re larger, it’s because they are key elements in a functional ecosystem. Mature trees store huge amounts of carbon above ground, but also store incredible amounts in roots. They also store carbon in soils; carbon that gets converted to various oxides, ammonia, and methane through the activities of soil biotic communities. Those products are released through soil respiration as additional greenhouse gases. The balance between soil respiration and the amount of carbon stored in trees is where the old and mature forests exhibit the greatest benefit to mitigating climate change.
Simply stated, mature trees store more carbon than is lost through soil respiration. Young trees do capture carbon, but the amount they store is less than what is released through soil respiration, which results in young forests being a net source instead of a sink. Recent research that Roger has referenced indicates that it takes a minimum of 40 years (and probably more depending on species and growth rate — another long discussion) before a balance between carbon capture and soil respiration is achieved.
The timeline is also affected by disturbance. Life cycle analyses of logging operations have shown that harvest releases more carbon than what is captured in wood products. This is caused by everything from the energy release from diesel trucks and chainsaws to burning slash piles in yards (areas where logs are stored and loaded onto trucks). But a primary cause of decreased carbon storage is the increase in soil fluxes related to disturbance and activity levels of soil microbes. The higher soil temperatures and increased water availability (decreased density of vegetation) common in harvest areas stimulates microbial activity and increases releases of the greenhouse gases mentioned earlier. This doesn’t happen in mature and old forests that don’t experience those disturbances. So the harvest of a forest not only changes the carbon cycle in the unit, but the logging itself is another net source of atmospheric carbon. And burn areas are typically “salvage logged” to collect the marketable dead timber.
Roger’s realization that supporting tree planting in areas impacted through fire doesn’t meet his objective of increasing carbon sequestration is largely because of the Forest Service’s reluctance to ensure new forests will be allowed to reach that equilibrium. Without that assurance, it makes more sense to spend the effort on protecting mature and old trees and biodiverse functional forest systems.
So back to your question. Young trees can help reduce atmospheric carbon, but young forests aren’t really that good at storing carbon. And we simply don’t have the time to wait until young forests reach the balance between carbon capture and release.