Brown: Why the white pine matters in Minnesota

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Minnesota’s official state tree might be the red pine, but you should really meet its older sibling, the white pine. The white pine is much taller with cool wavy hair.

Hundreds of years ago, the land we call Minnesota was a different kind of borderland. Here, the prairie met the edge of a massive white pine forest that stood sentry over the eastern side of the continent. When logging companies cut nearly all the timber, everything changed. Time and improved conservation methods brought back a new forest, but white pine never recovered to its past glory. Instead, other species rose to prominence, especially aspen.

A forest is like a big family. It has different characters, social pressure, unresolved trauma and takes generations to really change. But like any tight family, when you love the forest, it will love you back. And for one family in northern Minnesota, passion for the white pine became a defining mission.

The first time I met Jack Rajala, he looked like just about any backwoods Finn with a shock of white hair and a well-worn flannel shirt. I later learned that he operated one of the biggest timber companies in Itasca County. We hit it off after he saw me clomping around indoors with heavy winter boots — to him, the mark of a serious person.

Jack’s personal calling was to restore white pine in Minnesota. His family cut down millions of Minnesota trees since the early 1900s, so he felt personally responsible for the decline of the white pine. He could also see climate change happening in the woods before many in his industry were willing to admit it. Before his death from brain cancer in 2016, Rajala personally planted more than one million white pine seedlings.

“We get an abundance of regeneration with way less expensive methods,” said John Rajala. “It comes with some physical labor, but that’s a good life.”

Two factors cause the white pine to regenerate more slowly than other species. The first is whitetail deer browsing.

“We refer to white pine and northern white cedar as deer candy, which is a completely non-forestry-related term but a good way to look at it,” said Matt Picklo, a forester with the Itasca County Soil and Water Conservation District.

The other threat is a fungus called white pine blister rust, which cycles between white pines and certain forest shrubs like gooseberries and currants. This disease has wiped out entire sections of white pine trees.

In both cases, Picklo said people can do something to help white pines thrive.

It’s also time to “bud-cap” the terminal bud of young white pine to prevent deer browsing over winter, a method that Jack Rajala pioneered in Minnesota. This involves folding a small piece of biodegradable paper across the top of the tree like a flap, stapled lightly to hold it in place. The caps either fall off when the terminal bud pushes through in spring or can be removed manually. This should be done every year until the tree is at least 4 feet tall or out of reach for hungry deer.

Pests, diseases, climate change and human development aren’t going away any time soon, so it will take conscious effort to maintain healthy forests.

“The way that we’re going to be able to manage our forest to withstand different changes is to increase the diversity of our species,” said Picklo.

The importance of biodiversity is something John Rajala said his family learned in their quest to bring back the white pine. The most conducive way to restore the white pine was to plant it selectively amid other species.

“This biodiversity crisis is as important as our climate crisis,” said John Rajala. “Climate is an existential threat to humans, but the forest will survive it. But you can’t just solve the climate issue and not pay attention to the biodiversity issue.”

I remember Jack’s funeral in 2016. A speaker said she asked Jack what to do about a small tree that was growing alongside a larger broken one. “Leave it alone,” he told her. “That tree knows what to do.”