Northmoor Trust

• Paradise Wood
• Silviculture
• Tree Breeding
• Glossary

Tree Breeding

Forest tree breeding can have many benefits, not just to forestry, but to the environment and the rural economy as a whole:

• aids commercial viability while maintaining amenity and conservation values;
• encourages better silviculture;
• improved marketability;
• more diverse range of timber products;
• confidence in planting stock encourages further tree planting.

Forest tree breeding aims to improve the quality of trees for the production of timber by selecting trees of good phenotype with desirable traits, shown in this picture, to produce trees of improved genotype. This can be achieved through many ways using traditional breeding techniques such as provenance and progeny trials, combined methods such as the breeding seedling orchard, clonal orchards and, very rarely in forestry, genetic modification (GM) technology.

The Northmoor Trust is working with others to breed improved trees for timber production using most of these methods except for GM. The aim is to make available improved trees to foresters in Britain, thereby making the production of valuable hardwood a reality. A productive hardwood forest industry will promote the planting of more forests in Britain bringing benefit to landowners through diversification, habitat for wildlife, increasing areas for amenity and recreation, landscape enhancement and reduction of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

We work in close co-operation with others, largely through the British & Irish Hardwoods Improvement Programme B.I.H.I.P. - a consortium of forestry professionals, public bodies, landowners and forest scientists. The main research organisations of B.I.H.I.P. include the UK's Forestry Commission research agency, Forestry Research, COFORD (Eire), East Malling Research Station (EMR) and the Oxford Forestry Institute at Oxford University. Funding support for B.I.H.I.P. is provided by independent charitable trusts, individuals,and the partner organisations.

Research programmes on the broadleaved tree species of economic importance in the UK are being conducted. Visit the species pages to learn more about our work with each species

Many of these programmes are long-term projects but already some improved material is now becoming available on the open market in the UK for a limited range of species.

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