A DARTMOOR-based charity has collected more than 300,000 seeds since August, marking an end to its 2025 seed gathering season.

Moor Trees are celebrating a record-breaking season, with a staggering 368kg of fruits, nuts, acorns and berries being collected.

The charity, which celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, says it could not have achieved this without a ‘collaborative approach’.

Seed gathering is a key feature in Moor Trees’ volunteer calendar.

Like proviso years, it was supported by funding from the Woodland Trust.

Across 23 days, Moor Trees volunteers gave a total of 824 volunteering hours, with close to 90 people volunteering to give their time to help.

The charity works with landowners to arrange seed gathering from a range of local woodlands.

These include ancient woodlands which require special permissions and consent to visit from the government agency Natural England.

Moor Trees collected from a total of 23 different sites on Dartmoor and the surrounding area this year and would like to thank the Woodland Trust, Devon Wildlife Trust, Duchy of Cornwall, National Trust, Natural England, Dartington Estate, Kingskerswell Parish Council, Susan Widlake, South West Lakes Trust, Dartmoor National Park and Rewilding Hillcrest for welcoming us to their woodlands and being a vital part in our mission to restore native woodland.

Once the seeds have been gathered, they are brought back to Moor Trees’ two Community Tree Nurseries where they are weighed and recorded. With this bounty of a harvest our volunteers are working harder than ever.

Already four times the quantity of seed has been processed compared to 2024 – a whopping 271,637 individual seeds.

Earlier in the year the charity invested in a special piece of equipment to help with processing seeds such as from Hawthorn and Blackthorn and hosted a demonstration event for other Community Tree Nurseries on Thursday, October 30 which was also supported with funding from the Woodland Trust.

The more specialised species such as Guelder Rose and Small Leaved Lime still need to be processed by hand by the volunteers.

Moor Trees Operations Manager, Dave Lewis, said: ‘It has been an incredible year for seeds and the woodland floor has been covered with acorns.

‘This is called a mast year and gives a real boost to any business, charity or group growing trees.

‘Moor Trees grows local provenance trees to support our ambitions to restore native woodland on Dartmoor and help increase the total tree cover over time to around a third of the National Park.

‘Having access to an abundant supply of local provenance trees is essential to create more woodland to respond to the climate and nature crisis here in Devon and we are enormously proud of our role in producing these trees’.

For more information about the charity’s ongoing work, or to donate or volunteer, visit Moor Trees’ website.