advertisement advertisement advertisement When a truck delivery of pine cones arrives at a reforestation center in Davis, California run by California’s fire agency, it starts a monthslong process—just one step in the complicated work to restore forests obliterated by wildfires . advertisement advertisement Workers lay the cones out on racks, and flip them every day or two as they watch for the cones to start to open. When the cones are fully open, they go in a 90-degree Fahrenheit kiln to keep them open until the next day. Then they’re tossed in a giant tumbler that shakes the seeds out into boxes, and the seeds go in another machine that helps sort them by size. A preliminary x-ray shows which seeds are viable. Some seeds are cleaned by hand. After lab tests to make sure that the seeds can grow, they eventually end up in a giant walk-in freezer where they wait to be planted. The process is complex, and it’s one reason why … [Read more...] about There’s a surprising wrinkle in the quest to plant 68 billion trees