Quality Conifer Seedlings for the Northwest

The IFA nursery system provides foresters with a full service conifer seedling system that offers; risk diversity, custom growing and browse protection for their reforestation seedling contracts.  All our management personnel have over 20 years of seedling growing experience.

As the first privately owned and operated conifer seedling nursery west of the Mississippi River, IFA Nurseries, Inc. has grown in excess of 1.5 billion seedlings since its origination in 1941.  IFA Nurseries, Inc. has succeeded admirably in holding true to the vision of providing seedlings for reforestation to perpetuate the only renewable resource on the face of the planet we call home.  From our fertile nurseries have come many of the Northwest’s finest forests, and these forests constitute the greatest reducer of carbon buildup in our atmosphere.  IFA is proud to be a part of an industry that produces more trees to be planted than has been harvested.

We have established a geographical production presence within a three state area of Washington, Oregon and Northern California in the Northwest; with a bareroot and container nursery in each of these states. We take pride in providing a consistent supply of reforestation seedlings at competitive prices that are culturally superior for the timber industry.  The primary seedling species IFA produces are the following: Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock, Western Cedar, Coastal Redwood, True Fir and Ponderosa Pine.

IFA offers one contract/one contact for pricing and ordering within the nursery system.  The IFA “seed to seedling” nursery system offers cone processing, seed conditioning, seed storage, seed procurement, seed testing, seed separation, single-seed sowing, intracompany trucking (at below market cost) and other services to our contract customers.

          Our customers find that "IFA is the Way" by means of the following services:

• Multiple Nurseries - Our customers are able to diversify their ordering and growing risk across our nurseries, we offer geographical production capability for custom growing by species and product types.
• Cost Effective - IFA specializes in Plug-1 production by operating both bareroot and container nurseries, so our customers are able to order and transfer their seedlings within the same nursery system; eliminating the plug "shrink" that would be experienced between one competitor growing the plug and another competitor growing the transplant.
• High Quality - The IFA Nursery system fosters the sharing of managerial experience and customer input between its nurseries, in order to produce the highest quality seedlings available in the marketplace. For the P-1 and 1-1 intraco-transplant production; higher quality is experienced when one nursery manager is accustomed to the cultural practices of another nursery manager working within the same nursery system for many years.
• Management Expertise - Our management personnel, with combined experience totaling fifty years of forestry and horticultural growing experience at each nursery, are readily available to consult with and reduce any risk involved with your contractual requirements. Our four-tier management structure that includes manager, assistant manager, supervisor and administrative assistant is in effect at each of our locations and ensures continuity of seedling contracts.
• Northwest Seed - We can process your conifer cones, condition the seed and provide cold storage.  Seed lab personnel at Canby and Toledo examine the seed at various cone processing intervals and provide the following testing services:  germination, purity, moisture, blending and stratification.
• Cold Seed Storage - We maintain the proper seed storage conditions for the forests of the future at three convenient locations: Toledo, Canby and Humbolt. Our multiple storage locations in three states diversifies the storage risk of your accumulated investment in research and breeding.
• Cold Seedling Storage - We realize the importance of our customer's seedlings reaching true dormancy and the flexibility of being able to plant trees at an optimum date without damage, so we now provide cold storage at Canby at reduced commercial storage rates for our contract customers.
• Browse Protection - Our patented BudCap offers protection of the terminal bud for at least one growing season and can be applied at the nursery.  It can be manually slid up for a second season.

We take great pride in our organization's ability to provide quality nursery stock that gives a firm foundation to forestry.

To this day, IFA honors our original mission statement:

"To consistently grow the highest quality seedlings possible at competitive prices and provide our customers with the best service and added value in the industry."