MY YARD IS FULL of eastern white pine trees, and every three years or so, it is full of pine cones. This is one of those years. Pine cones have fallen all over the yard, the sidewalk, the driveway.

Remaking a forest requires a lot of seeds, and in 2025 things were starting to look dire as the longleaf pine seed supply dwindled across the Southeast. The U.S. Forest Service published its annual ...