Newsletter Sept 02
These newsletters
are edited and distributed at irregular intervals by Dag Lindgren. Email if you
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An URL address to this Newsletter is:
http://daglindgren.upsc.se/Newsletters/Newsletter02to03/Newsletter_Sep02.htm
(the link has to be copied and pasted, note that it may be broken on two lines)
Postgraduate course in Plant Breeding
I have received an invitation as follows:
We kindly invite doctoral students, practical
breeders and academic staff within plant breeding or linked professions to
participate in the "29th Nordic/Baltic postgraduate course in Plant
Breeding" by topic "In vitro cultures and plant breeding" held
in Lithuania, 3-9 March, 2003.
The detailed information was sent by mail and placed
on course website by address:
Questions and remarks are welcome.
Kind regards,
Sigute Kuusiene, PhD
Head of Lab. of Genetic and Biotechnology
Lithuanian Forest Research Institute
Phone: +370 37 547319
Fax: +370 37 547446
E-mail: biotech@mi.lt
China
visit
Darius,
I and Mohan visited southern China early September. There was a conference on Eucalypts
plantations, where we made presentations. I made a presentation about Low
input forest breeding. A commercial Forest company with head quarters in
Hong Kong financed the conference, in connection with the 40th anniversary of
Research Institute of Tropical Forestry in Canton. Two reflections: The
conference dealt with exotic trees with five years rotation and production of
40 m3/year and hectare, the focus was on aggressive breeding, but still it was
very little talked about biotech, in spite of that I can hardly think about a
more suitable environment for introduction of GMOs in forestry. At the
conference I met people from Stora-Enso and another Finnish forest company
stationed in southern China, so certainly "our" forest companies show
a very active interest to develop forest land in this part of the World.
Another reason for my travel to China for was a formal installation of one of my former Ph-D students as adjunct professor at South China Agricultural University followed by a seminar by me. I appreciated very much to get the possibility to be present at the occasion.
Flooding
and forest genetics
This summer Europe experiences flooding of - among other places -
Prague, Vienna and Dresden. Damage worth tens of billion of euros is reported. But
flooding is often reported from different parts of the Globe. In China more
than 900 humans have died from flooding this year, and the death toll of
Southern Asia by water and land slides is above 800. In Asia and China
catastrophic flooding occurs almost each year. Flooding
is predicted to be more common in the future as an effect of global warming.
What could WE forest geneticists and
tree breeders do? Of course other factors and possible actions can be claimed
to be more important, but we still believe tree breeding to be cost efficient,
and tree breeding may amplify another action. It cannot offer a major solution,
but may be a complement? It seems to be very few if any working with it.
One reason to have forests is to control water. Very large sums are
spent on "protection forests", maybe more than spent on
"production forests". Trees could probably be constructed, which fill
the protective purpose better. As "protection forests" are important,
they may deserve the attention of forest tree breeding.
In the nature factors like wind and low nutrition cause large root
systems. Can this inspire for a method to breed for larger roots?
Tree roots keep the soil on place and make erosion less likely. Can the
roots architecture be improved? Trees
with deeper roots would affect a larger amount of soil so maybe we should breed
trees with deeper root systems.
Soil keeps more water if it contains more organic material. Bred trees
grow faster and thus the build up of organic material and the soils water
carrying capacity will increase faster. Hardwoods like beech produce higher and
richer organic material in the soil compared to conifers, breeding them to be
more competitive may be a way.
The ability of soil to absorb heavy rain is dependent on pores in the soil
making it more penetrable for large amount of rains. Decaying tree roots is a
major source of such pores. Bred trees grow 10 % faster and thus ought to
produce 10 % more such pores. Bred intensively managed forests are harvested
more often, that may mean that roots die more often and that there will be more
channels after dead roots in the soil.
Trees pump up water from the soil. Thus the soil will be less water
saturated and more able to absorb heavy rain under a fast growing bred forest.
There are genetic differences within species concerning the performance
versus flooding. However, it needs much thought how this should be utilized.
There are possible negative impacts from tree breeding. It stimulates to
more intensive forestry with shorter rotations and thus more frequent clear
cuttings. Intensive forestry including breeding focuses much on conifers, which
may be doubtful. Breeding stimulates monoculture and replacing "wild"
forests with planting, while it is mostly believed that a more mixed type of
forest would be more stable. In hydrology may other biological part of the
forest ecosystem than trees be important (herbs, shrubs, worms), these
components may loose in the competition with the trees that are improved for
their ability to use the ground. Mostly we breed for what we can see in a
reasonable good environment, this may indirectly reduce the root system, Are
there ways to remedy these problems (and are these listed matters really
problems)?
Even mixed forest can be planted and bred. Mixtures of Eucalypts and P
radiata may be an idea (Eucalyptus is believed to consume large amounts of
water and to keep the soil unsaturated.
Fast establishment of trees in difficult environments is important.
Should we test and select trees more often for such already degraded areas?
(Recent trends are to select in fertile and unproblematic environments). A
well-adapted tree, which survives seems a good thing.
Maybe the best we can do is
to breed for faster growing trees which allows us to leave
bigger areas of "undisturbed" forests or protection
forests in areas where flooding is or may become a problem or to change
farm land into forests by growing Salix, poplar etc. Alnus may
constitute an especially interesting candidate in relation to areas with water
problems.
The soil below a fresh clear cutting is more saturated with water than
below a growing forest. Bred trees establish faster and reach canopy closing
and full production faster and will thus restore the water holding capacity of
the ground faster.
Is the risk for dangerous flooding reduced by the use of lodgepole pine
in Sweden, which has some of the advantages of bred plants?
These are good reasons for forest tree breeding in general as a
complementing remedy to flooding. Can the list and arguing be strengthened?
I acknowledge
comments from Johan Westin, Jianguo Ciu, Milan Lstiburek, Harald Grip, Seppo
Ruotsalainen, Li Bin, Veronica Cosideso…
DISPUTATION
Härmed tillkännages att B. Sc. Agric., M. Sc. Biol. Samuel Mari, Inst för skogsgenetik
vid SLU i Uppsala, kommer att disputera för filosofie doktorsexamen fredagen
den 25 oktober 2002, kl 10.00, Aulan, Genetikcentrum, SLU, Ultuna,
på en avhandling med titeln
Variation in Nitrogen Efficiency in Picea abies and Picea sitchensis
Avhandlingen finns tillgänglig på Institutionen för skogsgenetik, Ultuna
och Ultunabiblioteket fr o m den 4 oktober 2002.
Opponent är Assoc. Professor Dr
Bailian Li, Dept of Forestry, North Carolina State University
Is progeny testing worthwhile? I may
write about that in a coming letter. According to the results by Darius and me
(see e.g. our
article mentioned in the previous newsletter) and some other studies it
does not seem so. Is there someone who wants to defend progeny-testing? (e.g.
as it is suggested in the Swedish tree breeding).
Mini-course in Quantitative
Genetics and Breeding Theory Sept 16-18.
Lecturer and responsible: Dag Lindgren
Place: Sälgen A (floor 5, "Skogis", Umeå)
Time; September 16, 17 and
18 at 9.15-11.00. Three two-hours lectures.
Target group is scientists, who work with quantitative genetics - breeding related
issues; tree breeders; research students in forest genetics; research students
in adjacent fields with an interest for or interface with forest tree breeding.
The presentation will be similar to "mini-courses" held previous
years.
Some more information
may be available at
http://daglindgren.upsc.se/Courses/PostGrad/BreedSep02.htm
This will probably be the last course of this type I teach at Umeå. But
similar activities are planned elsewhere in the future.
Course
for undergraduates
I will arrange and
teach a course for undergraduates at Umeå about Forest Tree Breeding and seed
supply (5 Swedish points) October 30 - November 29. The course will be given.
What I know today, the course will get 4 Swedish and 5 foreign participants. It
may be suitable for other type of participants than undergraduates (e.g.
visiting scientists, recently recruited breeders and graduated students).
RGS is scheduled to meet
September 20 at Uppsala and föreningen
Skogsträdsförädling November 18.
For
how long will these newsletters remain? I intend to go on a sabbatical to US in the end of
this year, and when I intend to terminate this service. Further five subscribers
(beyond three on the previous) responded to this "threat" by asking
me to continue after the August letter, but it is probably too late. The newsletter also serves the function to
express my own thoughts on things, and I may feel a need to do that in the
autumn 2003, so I will not exclude that I make a final number then interpreting
what has happened, in particular concerning the down sizing the forest genetics
has experienced for the last years when (and if) this downsizing has stabilised
(as I did in closing the files on our "biochemical
genetics", which was completely abandoned).