Genetic Engineering as a New Tool in Commercial Forestry: Transfer and Expression of Foreign Genes in Pinus Species, 1997 Biological Sciences Symposium Proceedings

Pinus are the most widely grown forest tree species both in New Zealand and worldwide. The increasing demand for wood and pulp and paper products as well as greater awareness of the socioeconomic and ecologic value of native forests have led to an increase in reseamh efforts towards improving the growth and form of trees using molecular techniques. Traditional breeding including techniques such as controlled pollination and micropropagation protocols have already contributed to a tremendous genetic gain in Pinus rudiata plantation forestry. However, as certain desired traits are not available in the breeding population, new technologies such as genetic engineering have been and are currently being developed to introduce new and desirable traits into Pinus rudiatu and other conifers. Although progress has been hindered by the long regeneration time of conifers and limitations with tissue culture procedures, the reports of transgenic spruce (Ellis et al., 1993, Charest et al., 1996), larch (Huang et al., 199 1; Charest et al., 1993) and radiata pine (Walter et al., 1995) am indicative of success in the application of molecular techniques in forestry. This paper describes the development of a routine genetic transkormation protocol for Pinus rudiatu and other conifers, discusses research directed at a better understanding of conifer molecular biology and shows some applications for the te4hnology to plantation forestry.