There are a lot more Ponderosa pine trees at Chadron State College than there were a week ago.
Northwest District State Forester Doak Nickerson says 10,000 seedlings were planted Monday as part of a joint project with the college.
The pine seedlings went into one of the eastern-most parts of the campus as part of the long-running recovery effort from the 2006 fire.
A 13-member professional crew hand-planted the seedlings in a matter of hours.
Crew Chief Elder Medrano from Idaho-based Worman and Associates Forest Management and its CRW subsidiary says his entire group came to the U-S from Central America to plant trees all across the nation.
Some are new this year and some are veteran plants with Medrano.
Medrano says his crew works year-round, moving from state to state according to the tree-planting season.
The 10,000 Ponderosa pine seedlings were planted by Medrano’s crew over roughly 30-acres of steep drainage just southwest of the Rangeland Center.