Paper Pulse

Hybrid Cottonwoods leafing out at a tree farm in Clatskanie.  

It's a six year cycle from seedling to paper pulp.  

Trees as a renewable resource are big business in the Pacific Northwest.

Cathedral

A summertime view of the poplar farm in Boardman, Oregon.  Another photo buried on my SD card, this time from a trip to Montana last July. At the time I was more interested in an abstract panning photo, but I'm glad I took this more traditional view. Today the tall trunks remind me of columns in an outdoor cathedral, where man and nature intersect magically at this sustainable tree farm.

Poplar Farm, Summer

Driving home from eastern Washington took us past the hybrid poplar farm in Boardman, Oregon.  Of course I had to stop again for an abstract summer version of this farm.  I took a very similar photo in early April when the leaves where a light chartreuse color.  Here's a link to that post if you're interested in comparing, or you could type poplar farm into the search bar at the top of the page.  This image came out much softer.  I think that is mainly because I picked an older section of trees for this photo, and very little sunlight was filtering through.  Now I'll need to get this shot again in fall and winter to complete my seasonal series!

Tree Farm, Early Spring (version 2)

The more abstract version. I was reading on the GreenWood Resources website this morning, and I was interested to learn that this particular tree farm in Boardman is part of a larger renewable tree farm industry. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, they research and manage fast-growth hybrid Poplar farms throughout the US and internationally.  A 21st Century crop. 

Tree Farm, Early Spring

On our way home from the Palouse we happened to drive past this large field of Poplars planted in tight rows.  The young leaves were glowing in the afternoon sun, in just the shade of spring green that I'd been admiring all month.  I was pretty curious about these rows of trees so we got off the highway to check them out.  Turns out it's a sustainable tree farm growing high-yield, quick-growth trees for lumber and paper, creating biomass for energy production, and somehow treating wastewater through its irrigation process.  The farm is called GreenWood Resources in Boardman, Oregon.