Delegates from over twenty countries concluded that the best way to ensure a steady supply of seeds for future forests is to create dedicated areas that are managed as âseed producing orchardsâ. The conference organiser professor Dag Lindgren described seed orchards as the âcradles from which generations of seeds will come to bring benefits to the forest owners, the environment and mankindâ.
Seed orchards are reservoirs of genes which are passed to future generations of trees. The benefits of establishing seed orchards and collecting their harvest of seeds are healthier forests which are more productive and capable of taking up more of the carbon dioxide from the earthâs atmosphere. The latest technologies to design and manage seed orchards so that they produce seeds of the highest genetic quality were discussed at the three day conference. Many technical papers described systems of seed production which can safeguard genetic diversity as well as important genetic gains. A greater use of seed orchards for generating forests will ensure that they will be productive and sustainable in a wide range of environments.
The value of seed orchards for conservation of genetic diversity was recognised especially for tree and shrub species which are threatened by loss of habitat, climatic change and recurrent environmental disasters such as fires. Delegates heard that without seed orchards of certain pines it would not be possible to restore some Greek forests which were destroyed by the forest fires of 2007. Species, such as black pine and fir trees cannot regenerate naturally after fire. Fortunately, in this case, supplies of seed are available from black pine seed orchards. More seed orchards are needed in Europe and worldwide.
Jan-Erik Nilsson, Department of forest genetics and plant physiology, SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences), Umea, Sweden, telephone +46 90 786 82 56.
E-mail: Jan-Erik.Nilsson@genfys.slu.se
Bengt Andersson, Skogforsk, SĂ€var, telephone +46 90 203 33 58.
E-mail: Bengt.Andersson@skogforsk.se
13 January, 2017 - SLU
Infertile shrublands in Australia host an exceptionally high number of plant species. How the species can coexist while competing for limiting resources has puzzled ecologists for decades. Researchers, including two from SLU, suggest that part of the answer for such high plant diversity could reside in the myriad of root-associated organisms that live in soils. The study is published in Science.
30 July, 2015 - SLU
It is in moderately complex landscapes that it is most effective to deploy local conservation management measures to enhance biodiversity, such as flowering border zones. The SLU-researcher Mattias Jonsson has together with colleagues from New Zealand, Australia and USA recently published evidence for this in Journal of Applied Ecology.
26 June, 2015 - SLU
The genome of the parasite that is causing clubroot disease on several agricultural and horticultural crops is now released. The new knowledge will hopefully be useful to develop better diagnostic methods, breeding strategies and elucidating the biology of this unique plant pathogen group.
9 October, 2014 - SLU
Ultraviolet patterns can make window glass visible to birds, thus preventing fatal collisions. However, it has now been shown that such windows are not likely to work for all species, but only for birds like small passerines, gulls and parrots, who have a special type of colour vision. For birds of prey, geese, pigeons and crows, these patterns should be difficult to detect. These conclusions appear today in an article by Olle HĂ„stad and Anders Ădeen in PeerJ.
Expertsvar, The Swedish Research Council, Hantverkargatan 11B, Stockholm SWEDENPhone +46(0)8 546 44 000
P.O. Box 1035, SE-101 38 Stockholm, expertsvar@vr.se
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