Minnesota Offering More Cash for Black Spruce Seed

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Minnesota's black spruce seed supply is low, prompting the state Department of Natural Resources to offer more money to people to collect them to meet spring orders for reforesting.

The state is reportedly paying $85 a bushel, up from $70 last year.

Black spruce is a peat-loving workhorse tree across northern Minnesota, and those black spruce peatlands are very good at storing carbon, a key greenhouse gas.

The DNR uses the seeds to reforest about 6,000 acres of black spruce forest every year.