Newsletter_September01

Newsletter September 01

These newsletters are distributed at irregular intervals by Dag Lindgren. Email me if you want to be added or removed from the list or your email-address changed. I regret that insufficiencies in the interfacing between me and my computer (or your computer) sometimes causes problems in this (and other) processes, do not hesitate to focus my attention on that. An URL address to this Newsletter is
http://daglindgren.upsc.se/Newsletters/Newsletter00to01/Newsletter_September01.htm
it may appear nicer formatted there than in the current email.

The previous newsletter you can find at
http://daglindgren.upsc.se/Newsletters/Newsletter00to01/Newsletter_June01.htm
If you want to browse still earlier newsletters you need to know a trick, which I may reveal if you ask me.

Licentiatseminarium

Torgny Persson. Genetic characterization of growth and survival in northern Scots pine. Hörsal Björken, SLU, Umeå, 5 oktober kl 10.

New textbook in forest genetics!

Eriksson G & Ekberg I 2001. An introduction to Forest Genetics.
2001. 166 pp. Softcover. Price: EUR 30. (300 SEK)

The book can be ordered from Lotta Olsson, Department of Forest Genetics, Box 7027, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden, e-mail address:
Lotta.Olsson@sgen.slu.se.
The text has been developed during a quarter of a century of teaching forest genetics. It was printed in a Swedish version four years ago, but the English version is a substantial revision. I recommend it for all locations where forest geneticists or forest tree breeders work. I plan to use it as a basic text in the courses in forest tree breeding I organise at Umeå each November for the undergraduates. It is useful that it is in English as most undergraduates studying forest genetics at our faculty in Umeå are aliens.

More forest genetic books:

A way of finding forest genetics books is to look at (and order from)
http://www.amazon.com/

I screened this site for forest genetics, and below is a selection of what was offered (I excluded because of age and suitability)

Transgenic Trees (Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry, No 44)
by Y. P. S. Bajaj (Editor) (Hardcover - January 2000) Price: $219.00

Forest Conservation Genetics : Principles and Practice
by Andrew G. Young (Editor), et al (Hardcover - December 2000) Price: $120.00

Forest Genetics
by T.L. White, et al (Paperback) Price: $60.00

Frontiers of Forest Biology :
Proceedings of the 1998 Joint Meeting of the North American Forest Biology Workshop and the Western Forest Genetics asso by Joint Meeting of the North American Forest Biology Workshop and the we (Hardcover - September 2000) Price: $89.95

Tree Improvement : Applied Research and Technology Transfer
by Sunil Puri (Editor) (Hardcover - December 1998) Price: $80.00

Forest Biodiversity Research, Monitoring and Modeling :
Conceptual Background and Old World Case Studies (Man and the Biosphere Series, Vol 20)
by Francisco Dallmeier (Editor), James A. Comiskey (Editor) (Hardcover - August 1998) Price: $95.00

Genetics of Wood Production (Springer Series in Wood Science)
by Bruce J. Zobel, Jackson B. Jett (Hardcover - July 1995) Price: $250.00

Somatic Cell Genetics and Molecular Genetics of Trees (Forestry Sciences, Vol 49)
by M. Raj Ahuja (Editor), et al (Hardcover - October 1996) Price: $159.50

Somatic Embryogenesis in Woody Plants (Forestry Sciences, 59)
by S. Mohan Jain (Editor), et al (Hardcover - March 1999) Price: $195.00

Forest Genetics and Sustainability (FORESTRY SCIENCES Volume 63)
by Csaba Matyas (Editor), International Consultation on Forest Genetics and (Hardcover) Price: $132.50

Somatic Embryogenesis in Woody Plants - Volume 6 (Forestry Sciences Volume 67)
by S. Mohan Jain (Editor), et al (Hardcover - July 2000) Price: $336.00

Links to personal home pages

I thought seven years ago that this was coming, at least in the scientific world. For most scientists you should be able to get useful information from their home pages, and you should be able to link to them. I reviewed the homepages Subdirectory of the WWW Virtual Library Forest Genetics & Tree Breeding. I found 15 links to home pages of Swedish forest geneticists, but only one of them led to a home page, which was updated since 1999, most of the links did not lead to home pages at all. The major problem seems to be that web-master philosophies change too frequently and that they care too little about the consequences for their customers, and the second problem that web pages or structures rather often are not updated, but more or less dead. The only research area, which our department honours with a working (although slightly outdated) website is quantitative genetics and other genetics: at http://www-genfys.slu.se/research.htm.

About SLU forest genetics organisation

I will write more about this in the next newsletter, but the plant physiologist are during September moving away from “Skogshögskolan”, Umeå and are now localised with the plant physiologists at Umeå University in a building some hundred meters away from us geneticists. Our molecular population genetics group will, as far as I understand, stop to exist in a month or so. That Alfred Szmidt was not found competent to professor at Uppsala seems to mean that Sweden (and not just Umeå) lost him and his whole group. The remaining part (see link above) has also been somewhat decimated. Forest Genetics Umeå has been halved. Now I regard this as the darkest hour in the history of the Umeå forest genetics (since we moved to Umeå 1978). From SLU’s point of view: Gösta Eriksson; Inger Ekberg; Anders Persson and Alfred Szmidt has been lost in a short time, this is considerable more than half of our international frontline forest geneticists. Some representatives from “föreningen skogsträdsförädling” (Jan Remröd m fl) had a discussion with our dean and prorector about SLU forest genetics in the spring, but as far as I can see now, this has not resulted in anything substantial (yet??!!). Soon I will rewrite the history again, I do that regularly.

Inquiry about the genetics departments...
Bengt Andersson and Bjorn Hannrup will look at the SLU genetic departments and make suggestions about future research (but they will avoid localisation matters) to our faculty November 15, 2001. My comment: This enquiry probably comes too late, and it seems an inadequately small action if the picture I painted is correct and the intention is that forest genetics will regain some of which has been lost. Let’s hope that I am wrong!

Outi Savolainen
She chose not to accept the professorship at Forest Genetics in Uppsala early this year. I can inform that she neither accepted Peter Tigerstedt’s earlier position then it was offered to her (neither did the second ranking candidate). Neither does she want the position, which is vacant after Veikko Koski. As far as I know she stays where she is.

Aftermath of a dissertation

How was Kyu-Suk’s dissertation? Those who did not participate can check on
http://www-genfys.slu.se/staff/kang/family6.htm

Philosophy about peace

Our thoughts these days go to the USA. USA has experienced its by far largest war like causalities on own ground since the civil war more than a century ago. The small club of countries lacking this unpleasant experience in its modern history, which Sweden is lucky enough to be a member of, has lost its most important member. What has this with forest genetics to do? Well, the last huge war causalities in the Swedish history took place at and around the current SkogForsk Sävar station experimental field in August 1809. Thus our northern forest tree breeding in a way can be seen as built on the foundation of a unique long period of piece. Let’s hope the trees bred at Sävar carry on this peace message....

NOVA 02

The 28:th Nordic PhD course in Plant Breeding has the theme

QUANTITATIVE GENETICS AND EFFICIENT BREEDING

and takes place January 21-27, 2002 at Barnens Ö, Väddö, Stockholm, Sweden

The course website is

http://daglindgren.upsc.se/nova02/

I am arranging it, and will focus attention on some areas of relevance for forest tree improvement. Tim Mullin will be guest teacher. There is still room for some more active participants (that means course cost is covered for doctorands) and passives. The earlier deadline was if there was too many applicants, as there are now only 15 actives registered and funds allow 20, I invite more before early October. It costs 6000 for passives to be paid before December 1, but there is no specific deadline.

Addition to clonal seeds

I advocated in my previous Newsletter for the idea of international factories for clonal seeds, as seeds are easy to transport. (I did not mean to say that I feel confident this idea is mature for Swedish applications, although I suggest it is given a little attention). Well, I was reminded that I did not mention that European Union protectionism is an obstacle. EU rules put very strict restrictions on the import of any material produced outside the Union, if it can be produced equally well within the Union. Even if it can be trustworthy claimed that something is better made outside the Union, this may be a time consuming process, and may require a lot of effort. Someone, who really wants to complicate matters, can put a lot of gravel in the machinery (remember the banana wars?). Just the existence of this mechanism is likely to cause much reluctance. For seed import also phytosanitary control (certificate) is needed. This is a real and unavoidable complication, in particular if seeds are sent between continents, but I do not see this as more than a minor administrative complication, it seems very unlikely that this develops into a big problem or real obstacle. At least not if only seeds or equivalents (somatic embryos) are concerned. Probably some deal including an easy routine can be worked out for the particular case of an international seed factory.