First planting site: Utopia
Bigleaf maple doesn’t give up its secrets easily. That’s part of the appeal, and the challenge, behind Pacific Rim Tonewood’s Utopia Figured Maple Project.
For the past several years, PRT has been working toward a simple but ambitious goal: to better understand, and ultimately grow, exceptional figured maple. That means identifying trees with desirable traits in figure, growth habit, and resilience, and testing whether those traits are genetic or simply the result of environment.
To do that properly, you need scale, patience, and more than one place to grow.
Three Sites, One Question
At the core of the Utopia Project is a progeny trial across three sites in the Skagit Valley. Each site is planted with the same genetic lines, allowing people like PRT’s Kevin Burke to compare how those trees perform under different conditions. Kevin has worked on the Utopia project since the idea came to fruition in 2014, and has been hands-on from day one. He’s also into the science of growing good trees, and is the PRT liaison with forestry experts at Purdue, Oregon State, Washington State and other universities. A background in horticulture makes Kevin a natural fit for PRT’s ground breaking work with maple propagation. “We're in the wild west for Bigleaf maple,” Kevin said, “and are the only ones trying to look at figure in this really specific way.”
Early in the project, PRT also brought in forest geneticist Dan Cress to oversee the maple progeny testing program. Dan has guided the science behind the trials, from growth data and analysis to the eventual selection of the strongest genetic lines. In many ways, his involvement is what makes this true science, not just experimentation.
That scientific approach shaped the project from the ground up, including how and where the trees would be planted. Three distinctly different sites provide PRT the best opportunity to answer the question: is figure in maple transmissible?
“We think it is,” said Steve McMinn, Founder of Pacific Rim Tonewoods, and the impetus behind Utopia. “It’s a long game, but we believe that growing high value trees like these is important to our business, and to our customers, and to forestry for the future.”
Figured Maple
Finding the Third Site
PRT acquired the first two sites at Utopia and Richmyer quite easily, but it took much longer to find the right third location. Too wet, too dry, too restrictive – site after site fell short for one reason or another. When the opportunity came to lease land at the Hedlin farm near La Conner, it checked many of the right boxes: scale, soil, and long-term potential.
It also came with an impressive history. Hedlin is working family farmland that’s been cultivated for generations, known locally and deeply tied to the Skagit Valley community. Partnering here adds another layer to the project – one that connects long-term forestry with an already rich agricultural heritage.
But as it turns out, good farmland doesn’t always mean perfect conditions for trees.
Second planting site: Richmyer
Third planting site: La Conner
A Setback in the Soil
The first planting at La Conner in 2023 didn’t go as planned. Within months, a large portion of the maple trees began to fail. The culprit was verticillium wilt, a persistent soil-borne disease that can sit dormant for years before activating when roots make contact.
Maples, unfortunately, are particularly susceptible.
The losses were significant – roughly three-quarters of the initial planting. It forced a pause, and a difficult decision about what to do next. After a year of assessment, the PRT team chose to move forward with soil remediation; a step not taken lightly due to cost, complexity, and no absolute guarantees. Even after treatment, there’s no perfect way to confirm that the problem is fully gone. Tree roots reach deeper than most crops, and what lies below the surface remains, in part, unknown.
Planting Forward
This year’s planting at La Conner marks a reset. In 2026, approximately 1,200 trees representing 37 genetic lines have been planted across the site. It’s a significant addition, and a long-awaited milestone after years of delay. With this planting, the Utopia Maple Project moves forward again as a true three-site trial.
Each of these trees will be tracked the same way as the others: measured annually, evaluated for structure, health, and figure, and compared across locations. Over time, the stronger lines will separate themselves from the rest.
Two-year-old maple trees ready for La Conner planting
What Success Looks Like
The original goal was to identify 100 exceptional maple cultivars. In practice, the number will likely be closer to 60–75. That’s not a compromise; it’s a reflection of how rare truly outstanding Bigleaf maple trees are, and how long it takes to prove they’re worth keeping.
Planting maple cuttings at Utopia greenhouse
Along the way, the project is also exploring other questions:
- Can mixed-species planting improve growth?
- Does competition from other trees encourage better form?
- How do soil conditions shape long-term outcomes?
There are early signs that some of these approaches, like pairing maple with alder, can lead to stronger, faster-growing trees. But like everything else in this project, those insights take time to confirm.
The Long View
If there’s one thing La Conner reinforces, it’s that this work doesn’t follow a straight line. And it’s not for the faint of heart. There are always setbacks, but because PRT is something of a maverick with this initiative, many ‘firsts’. Decisions don’t fit neatly into best practices because, in many cases, there are no established practices to follow. But that’s also what makes the project meaningful.
The goal isn’t just to grow trees; it’s to understand them well enough to shape the future of the resource itself. For guitar builders, furniture makers, bowl turners, and anyone who works with wood, that has immeasurable value.
Today, the project includes roughly 8,000 test trees planted across more than 100 acres of diversified ecosystem in the Skagit Valley. Each site is measured, monitored, and evaluated year after year. Over time, that data begins to tell a story – about which trees are worth carrying forward, and which aren’t.
The project also explores silviculture; how figured maple should be spaced, pruned, and grown alongside other species to produce healthy, high-quality trees over time. Steve describes it as both a scientific and practical forestry challenge. “Our goal is to not only grow high value trees for instrument wood”, he says, “but to make those trees attractive to land trusts, cities and towns, and other forestry projects.”
Growing More Than Trees
In many ways, the Utopia Maple Project is about more than figured maple. It’s a long-term investment in better forestry practices, in understanding how high-value hardwoods can be responsibly grown, and in creating future economic opportunities tied to the land and the communities around it. The work supports local planting, research, and stewardship in the Skagit Valley, while helping shape a more sustainable future for the resource itself. And for instrument makers, every purchase of maple from PRT becomes part of that larger story — a way to directly support an ambitious project focused on the future of forests and the trees their instruments depend on.
