drained site in Florida, survival was high, but heights had increased only , probably because of heavy herbaceous competition. Seedlings grown in a crawfish pond in Louisiana, where weed control and soil moisture were excellent through June, averaged and diameter at breast heigh after five years. However, a replicate of the same sources planted in an old soybean field, where weed control and soil moisture were poor, resulted in the same diameter, but a smaller average seedling height of . When planted in a residential yard and weeded and watered, they averaged tall three years later. Vegetative reproduction Bald cypress is one of the few conifer species that sprouts. Thrifty sprouts are generally produced from stumps of young trees, but trees up to 60 years old also send up healthy sprouts if the trees are cut during the fall or winter. However, survival of these sprouts is often poor, and those that live are usually poorly shaped and do not make quality saw timber trees. Stumps of trees up to 200 years old may also sprout, but the sprouts are not as vigorous and are more subject to wind damage as the stump decays. In the only report on the rooting of bald cypress cuttings found in the literature, cuttings from trees five years old rooted better than those from older trees. Ecology The seeds remain viable for less than one year, and are dispersed in two ways. One is by water: the seeds float and move on water until flooding recedes or the cone is deposited on shore. The second is by wildlife: squirrels eat seeds, but often drop some scales from the cones they harvest. Seeds do not germinate under water and rarely germinate on well-drained soils; seedlings normally become established on continuously saturated, but not flooded, soils for one to three months. After germination, seedlings must grow quickly to escape floodwaters; they often reach a height of 20–75 cm (up to 100 cm in fertilized nursery conditions) in their first year. Seedlings die if inundated for more than about two to four weeks. Natural regeneration is therefore prevented on sites that are always flooded during the growing season. Although vigorous saplings and stump sprouts can produce viable seed, most specimens do not produce seed until they are about 30 years old. In good conditions, bald cypress grows fairly fast when young, then more slowly with age. Trees