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11. Transplanted Trees
- University of Washington Press
- Chapter
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11 / tRanSPlanted tReeS C ommon-gardenexperimentshadbeeninitiatedwithforesttrees almost two centuries before the work of turesson,Clausen, and their contemporaries. and from these early studies emerged a prominent line of investigation, provenance research, that began to shed light on geographic variation in several major tree species. indeed, as many forest biologists have pointed out, it is in the area of ecological genetics that forestry research may have made its earliest and most significant contribution to biology. Yet until recently this work has received little attention from the scientific community. why? The simplest explanation is that results from these studies were often published in obscure research station reports, proceedings of meetings, or other “gray literature,” or else in forestry journals, all of which fall under the 94 TransPlanTed Trees 95 rubric of applied science and are therefore easily overlooked. Science has a culture of its own, and it tends to be highly compartmentalized. with the broadening of perspectives and as much of ecological research becomes interdisciplinary, many of these gaps are now being bridged. interestingly, as we will see in chapter 14, it is in the context of climate change that these field studies are being rediscovered by scientists and recognized as remarkably informative. it turns out that such transplant trials offer insight into the way diverse seed sources respond to new environments.1 The original motive for forestry provenance studies was eminently practical:namely,tofindthebestgeographicseedsources(provenances) for planting stock of desirable quality. of special concern was the sustained supplyof naval timber for shipbuilding, especially in england and france.white oak and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) figured prominently among the preferred species. in 1745 this led a french nobleman, duhamel du monceau, to initiate a comparative field trial with Scots pine from the Baltic provinces and neighboring Russia, as well as from Scotland and several sources in central europe (we must remember that this pine has an enormous distribution range that extends from Spain to northern Scandinavia, and from the atlantic to eastern Siberia). forty years later, it was du monceau’s nephew, fougeroux de Blavan, who was able to see the results of the trial and to publish them.2 apparently they met with much interest and may have been a key element in later motivating Philippe-andré de vilmorin, brother of louis levêque, a well-known plant breeder, to extend the work with this species. in 1820, he began a follow-up study on his estate near orléans, france. after growing and observing the pines for thirty-six years, he reported his findings in 1857.The results clearly showed that many of the differences in growth and form that had been observed in the regions of origin turned out to be genetically based. The best-performing sources were those from the Baltic region, collectively recognized as “Riga Pine.”3 This may not come as a surprise to those who have traveled in the Baltic region and seen those surreal pine stands, where every tree looks like an organ pipe topped by a small, fine-branched crown. a lumberman’s dream. what was new was that this quality could be perpetuated via seed at other locations. a nurseryman’s dream. The vilmorin legacy in [3.235.154.65] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:06 GMT) 96 TransPlanTed Trees france continues to this day in a thriving chain of vilmorin nurseries, and documents containing his work can still be seen at the original estate in orléans. interest in these findings led to several other provenance studies of Scots pine in austria, Germany, and Sweden, and in 1908 to the first international test, coordinated by the international Union of forest Research organizations (iUfRo). it contained thirteen seed lots from widely dispersed sources in central europe, which were planted at eleven locations.4 with its documentation of bearing out the importance of heredity, the idea caught on and prompted the launching of similar studies with other important conifers, such as norway spruce (Picea abies), and on this continent with douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii ) and ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa). The european interest in exotics, especially the impressive conifers of the Pacific northwest, provided further impetus to learning more about the pre-adaptation of individual seed sources to the intended planting environment. even in the 1960s i was often amazed by the detailed knowledge of some British or German forester about geographic variation in Sitka spruce or douglas fir, compared to the ignorance of a forest manager in the area where the seed...