"Forestry technician Grace Smith has spent the spring working 10-hour days, planting trees in the woods of the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge in Vermont.
With 200 to 300 saplings a day to resettle in test plots before the weather gets too hot for young trees, Smith and her colleagues use dibbles — long, pointed tools with handles, to open holes in the ground.
"They're super handy," Smith says, "to be able to get these roots deep enough down."
The saplings include a variety of species chosen to see if they will increase the forest's resiliency. One variety of red spruce, especially chosen for its origins in the mountains of West Virginia, will become a test of what scientists call "assisted migration," introducing populations from warmer areas to northern latitudes projected to become hotter and drier in a changing climate. "
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