International Forest Co. has officially begun operations at the former Weyerhaeuser tree nursery in Washington.

“We have started the crop now and have got it underway,” said Wayne Bell, chief operating officer at IFCO. “We’ve got 47 million seedlings growing there at Washington.”

IFCO Bareroot LLC, a sister company of IFCO, announced its plans to purchase the Weyerhaeuser nursery in January as one of four nursery purchases across the South. The Washington nursery holds bareroot and container forest seedlings. IFCO’s purchase was made official as of March 20, according to Bell.

Bell said Washington’s seedling operation has only seen two employees leave after a substantial tenure with Weyerhaeuser, and has added three technicians since January. IFCO intends to keep workforce operations running at about the same capacity in Washington, he said.

One difference, however, is IFCO’s targeted clientele. While Weyerhaeuser also works in the energy and sustainability, land development and wood products markets, Bell said IFCO intends to sell its product solely to public and private landowners, many of whom are pursuing reforestation projects, in North Carolina, Virginia and potentially South Carolina.

“We’ve been very well received in the market,” Bell said. “We’ve got a significant commitment from customers to date.”

Bell added that the company anticipates selling out of its product by the fall.

“We ended up having an open house at the facility in June, and we had 55 people attend the open house,” he said. “It was well attended for us. We felt very positive that we had 55 people come, and even some of the state organizations.”

Of the approximately 1 billion seedlings planted in the South each year for tree-planting purposes, IFCO now oversees more than 250 million of those, according to Bell.

Founded in 1971, IFCO is a privately owned company based in Moultrie, Georgia.