The care and handling of the forest gene pool
| Authors: | Roy R. Silen, Ivan Doig |
| Year: | 1976 |
| Type: | Scientific Journal |
| Station: | Pacific Northwest Research Station |
| Source: | Pacific Search. 10(8): 7-9 |
Abstract
What must be the world's most magnificent pool of forest genes has timbered our Pacific slopes.
Why else do the tallest firs, pines, spruces, hemlocks, redwoods, and larches all rise along the Pacific Coast of North America? Does their hugeness simply thrust up from our deep soils and mild, rainy climate? From a vantage point of three decades in forest research, I believe the key to this wealth of timber is more than a matter of soil and moisture.
Taken together, the genes of our 22 commercial western conifers seem to me to constitute our vital basic resource. And unless we recognize the magnificent quality of this gene pool, we may needlessly risk pauperizing or destroying it as man begins to alter it along the lines of his customary philosophy of genetic improvement.