super tree?

[snowman]

This may be a dumb question, im not sure.15 years ago I cleared about an acre for a view from my shack.Over the years ive kept on top of the thinning, culled out everything but larch, ponderosa and white pine.Its a beautiful little stand.Yesterday I was enjoying a cigar, admiring my work when i noticed 1 ponderosa pine with 10 cones in it. Geeez this trees just a baby. None of the other trees have cones. Ive never really noticed trees this young with cones but its not something you really look for.Is this a super tree? a tree among trees, guiness book of world records time or no  big deal ???

[beenthere]

Don't have much of a clue, however I'd first look to see if this 'cone' tree is under stress, either bugs or soil or water or injury.  Trees sometimes react to stress by a flush of cones. They may not have viable seeds, but that's probably beside the point.

Hope it is not stress that it cannot recover from. Hope it's a super tree for you. 

[WDH]

I too hope it is a super tree, but I agree with beenthere.  Cone production in a juvenile conifer is generally a sign of stress.  The plant is trying to be sure it can reproduce, and the stress triggers the fruiting response early.  That is not to say that the tress will die; it may live for 500 years! 

[tonich]

I’ll third that. This is not so unusual. I’ve seen 15-20 years old Scots Pines (Pinus Silvestris) in such a situation. As beenthere already said, most likely all the seeds are empty.

[solodan]

How big are the cones? Are they the normal large cone of a ponderosa, or are they those little immature cones that they sometimes shove out?

[snowman]

They are little cones.Ill open one up today, investigate this further. Stress huh, bummer.

[SwampDonkey]

I had a 10 year old white pine with cones, it got infected with blister rust and died the same year. Well, I cut it. But other trees when open grown will have seed at a young age. They are not necessarily stressed, it could be due to optimum growing conditions to. Just about all my young yard trees have had seed, except my beech, sugar maple, yellow birch and red maple. As stated, the large majority of seed will often be sterile on juvenile trees. My black spruce trees are 13 years old 2-4 m tall in the plantations and they have been producing seed since their 8th year in the ground. I have not seen any of the seed germinate. All that have germinated are wild white spruce seed.

[bitternut]

I bought a bunch of black cherry seedlings and stuck a couple of them in the ground at home. It was only a year or two before they were producing fruit. The robins ate them and planted them under my blue spruce trees. I now have hundreds of little cherry seedlings growing under those spruce trees.