R & D Agenda for Sustainable U.S. Forest Productivity.

Editor's Note: This article is a result of the Forest, Wood and Paper Industry's Agenda 2020 program focused on providing the industry with technology for a robust and sustainable future. Summarized here is one of the six platforms of Agenda 2020--"Sustainable Forest Productivity."

Agenda 2020's Technology Summit II focused on the deployment of technologies that could significantly enhance the viability of the U.S. forest products industries. The Sustainable Forest Productivity technology platform focused its sessions on issues related to the development and large-scale deployment of softwood clonal forestry, principally loblolly pine. Loblolly pine was selected as a case study because of its importance as a plantation species in the southeastern United States.

Loblolly pine is one of the most important crop species and the most important commercial timber species in the United States. Its native range spans 14 states, from southern New Jersey south to central Florida and west to Texas. In this range it makes up more than half of the standing pine volume in the region. In 1998, 75% of the 1.6 billion seedlings planted in the United States were loblolly pine. It is established on more than 30 million acres of plantations.

The quality of these plantations can be significantly augmented if they are established with clonal material instead of conventional seedlings. That will assure that, when coupled with other technologies, the region will have a future world-class softwood resource. In the long run, U. S. based industries will have to match or exceed the wood quality of their largest international competitors, at better prices.

Clonal propagation of softwoods is arguably the most important currently emerging forest technology, with expected benefits of more than 10% reduction in energy required to produce chemical pulp and a 10% reduction in wood production costs. The objective of the Sustainable Forest Productivity Session was to speed the implementation of clonal loblolly pine plantations, thus making our forest and mill products more valuable.

SUSTAINABLE FOREST PRODUCTIVITY

The Sustainable Forest Productivity research pathways for Agenda 2020 include biotechnology and tree improvement, soil productivity, physiology of forest productivity, and forest information technology. The mission of the Agenda 2020 forestry team is clear: support and encourage R & D needed to achieve substantial and sustainable increases in forest productivity. The technology vision is also clear and focused on the four research pathways, which have proven to be highly successful in other agricultural crops and tree species worldwide.

Genetics has played a significant role in the domestication of loblolly pine as successive generations of plantations have been established with ever-increasing genetic quality. Starting with wild seed collections in the 1940s, the evolution progressed to seed production areas in the 1950s, open-pollinated seed orchards in the 1960s, family block plantings in the 1980s, and finally to the seeds produced by mass-controlled pollinations of today. Clonal propagation and the establishment of clonal forests is the next step in the tree improvement process for loblolly pine.

The application of these genetic improvements and other cultural and site-specific technologies has resulted in corresponding improvements in productivity. The loblolly pine plantations we are establishing in the South today are four times as productive as the natural stands that existed in the 1950s. Further increases in loblolly productivity and wood quality traits are heavily dependent upon the application of clonal forestry.

CLONAL FORESTRY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY

Clonal forestry will be the platform for implementing future gains from biotechnology. This is because clonal forestry provides a mechanism for propagating individual trees that have been engineered for outstanding performance through the introduction of one or more genes controlling important traits.

Biotechnology can improve agronomic traits, resulting in faster growth, insect resistance, and herbicide and disease resistance. It can lead to improvements in post-harvest value traits for pulp mills or solid wood processing mills, such as improved pulping, improved wood density and stiffness, and less checking. Other trait improvements, such as enhanced decay resistance, may provide value directly to the end customer.

Advances in forest biotechnology are coming rapidly. Efficient gene transformation systems now exist for both softwoods and hardwoods, and a number of useful genes have been identified. Through biotechnology, loblolly pine trees with improved traits not accessible through conventional breeding will be available, following field testing and regulatory approval. All of the core technical requirements are being met to make loblolly pine a success through biotechnology:

* quality germplasm exists,

* knowledge of loblolly pine's genomics and molecular biology (gene sequencing, gene discovery, gene function) is expanding, and

* working transformation systems are in place.

Selections made from field tests of transgenic trees and commercialization of these proven trees are future needed steps. Commercialization of transgenic loblolly pine will be realized through clonal propagation.

Clonal propagation of forest trees has been practiced for centuries, especially with easy-to-propagate species such as poplars, Chinese fir, and several species of eucalyptus. However, because of differences in species biology and economic and social systems, the methods used abroad to propagate eucalyptus and other species do not work well with loblolly pine in the United States or are not attractive economically.

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Loblolly pine has been cloned for years through asexual propagation as grafts, rooted stem cuttings, branch layers, and various tissue culture systems, including micropropagation, organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis. None of these systems, however, either alone or in combination, has produced a reliable, cost effective method to produce millions of proven loblolly pine genotypes at a competitive cost in the United States. For the most part, clonal production systems have been used to establish clonal tests where a few plants are produced from each of many clones. The Agenda 2020 vision is to establish clonal forests where many plants are produced from each of a few highly selected clones.

ADVANCING CLONAL LOBLOLLY PINE

Advances in many areas are needed for us to realize the anticipated potential of clonal loblolly pine forestry systems:

1. Value-chain assessment. Several investigators have published rough estimates of the volume gains that can be achieved from within-family selection (i.e., those gains that can be captured only through clonal forestry and not seed production systems). There is an urgent need for similar assessments of the total value that improved clonal genotypes can bring to various loblolly product lines. Experience with clonal forestry systems for radiata pine in New Zealand and various eucalyptus species and hybrids in Brazil suggests that improvements in wood quality for solid wood products have far greater value than do volume gains. The value of wood quality improvements achievable through clonal forestry needs to be quantified for loblolly pine, especially for solid wood products. The valuations are expected to be large and thus will bring a sense of urgency to the operational deployment of clonal loblolly pine. The analysis needs to be based on realistic stretch production and cost targets and consider the fact that our major international competitors are also making investments in clonal forestry and biotechnology.

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2. Breeding for clones. Most breeding programs for loblolly pine in the southern United States are conducted in cooperative breeding programs at one of three institutions: North Carolina State University, The University of Florida, and Texas A & M University. These programs have been highly successful and are responsible for most of the germplasm developed to date. The focus of these programs has been to achieve gains through various seed production systems that are somewhat--but not completely--compatible with clonal production systems. However, clonal systems could be much more effective if the breeding efforts were focused on the development and production of clones.

3. Developing a testing program to identify superior clones. A coordinated testing program is needed to establish credible, common "standards" for clones. Such a clonal testing program will lead to faster development of the technology through increased gain per unit of effort and cost, increased gain per unit of time, and better characterization of genotype/ environment interaction. These standards may be used to establish an economic value for individual clones in the marketplace.

4. Reducing the cost of clone production for testing. The high cost of developing a sufficient number of clones that can go into replicated clone tests at any one time is a major hindrance. This is especially true for those tests that are based on somatic embryogenesis to generate the clones. In clone tests, where few copies of many clones are compared, genotype specificity to the somatic embryogenesis process and overall inefficiencies in the entire somatic embryogenesis process greatly elevate the costs of producing clonal material. Improvements in the somatic embryogenesis process may reduce the costs of clone testing (and future deployment), especially the costs of getting genotypes into and out of cryogenic storage.

5. Developing silvicultural systems for clones. Each clone will be truly unique in terms of its silvicultural requirements and response to silvicultural treatments. Large differences are expected for such factors as clone/spacing interactions, clone/nutrition interactions, etc. These differences and their impact on wood quality have to be quantified and modeled to take full advantage of the genotypes being developed.

6. Establishing a series of clonal block trials. A series of clonal block trials are needed to establish end product value and to quantify the growth and yield of selected clones under realistic stand conditions. These trials can be used to evaluate risk from known risk factors such as native insects and diseases, climate, soil type, etc. They also can be used to evaluate unknown risk factors, such as new varieties of native or exotic pests, extreme weather events, or climate change.

7. Initial deployment and monitoring. A conservative "ramp up" approach to the operational deployment of clones is best. This approach uses many clones initially in relatively small plantings. The initial plantings are monitored carefully, becoming in effect, an extension of the block trails. Accurate records are kept, enabling ongoing performance evaluations. Over time, the number of clones being deployed operationally is reduced to only a select few. Continuous improvement is achieved as testing proceeds by gradually introducing new select clones and eliminating less productive ones.

8. Somatic embryogenesis. Somatic embryogenesis involves culturing cells from a normal pine tree embryo and creating a very large number of genetically identical "somatic embryos," each capable of becoming a tree. It seems almost certain that one or several components of somatic embryogenesis will play a pivotal role in the eventual deployment of clonal loblolly pine. Somatic embryogenesis technology is more highly developed for loblolly pine than for any conifer in the world. Because of its multiplicative power and potential for automation, the somatic embryogenesis system has the inherent capability to deliver superior plantlets at or below the cost of open-pollinated seedlings. Many biological and engineering challenges remain, however, in the path to making this a reality. Solutions are needed, for example, to increase embryo throughput and embryo quality, increase the embryo-to-plant conversion efficiency, and increase the percentage of genotypes that are compatible with the embryogenesis system. Biological and engineering solutions are highly interdependent and must be developed in tandem. Automation is a key to cost reduction.

9. Creating a commercially viable system for clonal seedling production. Several research organizations are developing somatic embryogenesis systems for loblolly pine and other species. Each of these organizations has patents on biological and engineering technologies that may have potential commercial applications for clonal loblolly pine systems. The marketplace ultimately will determine which of these technologies can be combined to produce a viable economic product. There may be opportunities to accelerate the pace of system development and commercialization through formal alliances designed to test combinations of biological and engineering/ automation technologies.

10. A new social contract is needed with the public on clonal forestry and biotechnology. An open dialogue is needed with the public to gain acceptance of clonal forestry and, in the future, biotechnology. Access to data and benefit sharing by all parties is required. There can be no short cuts to credibility and public acceptance. The U. S. Forest Service, because of its excellent reputation as a research agency for producing credible, unbiased research, can play a critical role in gaining this acceptance. This is especially true for questions such as how various clonal deployment schemes may affect overall biological diversity.

11. Recommended long-term areas of research to receive public funding. We estimate conservatively that an investment of US$20 million per year for 10 years is needed in pre-competitive research. An immediate need is to improve the somatic embryogenesis process. An excellent way to do this is to gain a better understanding of the biology, physiology, and biochemistry occurring in natural loblolly pine zygotic embryogenesis. Some work has been done to understand the natural processes in loblolly pine, but more is needed. Molecular biology is the other major area that needs targeted funding. These funds would support whole-genome sequencing of loblolly pine and the application of the emerging technologies coming from molecular biology, such as association genetics, to loblolly pine. Adequate funding for somatic embryogenesis research and molecular biology research would hasten the development of clonal loblolly pine forests and the application of biotechnology to loblolly pine.

FUTURE FORESTS

The basic question we are facing is what condition we want our loblolly pine forests to be in 25 years from now. It is hard to create a sense of urgency with the excess of pine fiber on the market today. But, if we look around the world the most significant capital investments in our industry are being made in other countries, such as Brazil and China. Capital investments in the United States are only comparable to the cost of depreciation. How do we deal with this disruption of our business? How do we, as a country, deal with the disruption and drain on our national economic health? We have a tremendous inherent advantage in that one-half of the world's market for forest products is close to our forests and mills. Our population is well educated, sophisticated, and willing to pay for higher value.

Clonal forestry allows us to make a step change in terms of the quality and quantity of the wood that we can grow. The gains that took 50 years to accomplish through conventional breeding can be attained in 10 years with clonal forestry. In addition, somatic embryogenesis-based clonal forestry provides the foundation for biotechnology that can transform the loblolly pine tree growing business. Establishment of clonal forests will go a long way to assure the long-term health and viability of our domestic forest products industry. The acceptance of clonal forestry in the loblolly pine marketplace will require that all partners in the conservation community, including the private forest industry, state agencies, the U. S. Forest Service, and sundry nongovernmental conservation groups work together to make it a reality. Each will have a major role to play for this step change to occur. Time is of the essence as reinvigoration of the domestic industry is needed now.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

* Why U.S. clonal forestry efforts are focused on loblolly pine.

* Current clonal forestry research initiatives.

* Further advances needed to promote commercial clonal forestry development.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

* Initial results from Technology Summit II: www.tappi.org/redirects/techsummit.asp.

* "Technology Summit II targets 'The Challenge of Deployment,'" Solutions!, June 2004. Product Code: 04JUNSO49. (Enter product code in search engine on www.tappi.org).

* Setting the Industry's Technology Agenda, edited by Gerard Closset. Product Code: 0101R307.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

David Canavera, Ph.D (left), is manager, R & D, ecosystems project, MeadWestvaco Corp., Summerville, South Carolina, USA. Contact him by email at [e-mail]. Alan Lucier is senior vice president of NCASI, Durham, North Carolina, USA. Contact him by email at [e-mail]. Canavera and Lucier are co-leaders of the Agenda 2020 Sustainable Forest Productivity Task Force.

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