Forestry Sciences Volume 83 Serieseditors ShriMohanJain HelyHäggman Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttp://www.springer.com/series/5991 Rowland D. Burdon · William J. Libby Alan G. Brown Domestication of Radiata Pine RowlandD.Burdon AlanG.Brown Scion–NewZealandForest Deakin,ACT ResearchInstituteLtd Australia Rotorua WilliamJ.Libby Orinda,California USA ISSN 0924-5480 ISSN 1875-1334 (electronic) ForestrySciences ISBN 978-3-319-65017-3 ISBN 978-3-319-65018-0 (eBook) DOI10.1007/978-3-319-65018-0 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2017955956 ©SpringerInternationalPublishingAG2017 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartof thematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting,reuseofillustrations,recita- tion,broadcasting,reproductiononmicrofilmsorinanyotherphysicalway,andtransmissionorinfor- mation storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. 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Printedonacid-freepaper ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisSpringerInternationalPublishingAG Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:Gewerbestrasse11,6330Cham,Switzerland To the late Dr Max Jacobs ISO whose own pioneering work and leadership were so influential in the genesis of genetic improvement of radiata pine. Preface This is not just a story about radiata pine—it is also about people and institutions, aspectsthathavetheirowninterestformany.Moreimportantly,however,wecon- sider the interactions between these aspects and the science and technology of domestication to be highly instructive. In the background, as a significant influ- ence, have been shifts in prevailing economic ideology within the main countries involved. In1968,ProfessorDanielZoharyoftheHebrewUniversity,aneminentscholar of the domestication of wheat and of the role of plant domestication in the devel- opment of human societies, was visiting the Genetics Department in Berkeley. There,inworkingwithoneofus(WJL),heexpressedenvyofhowthosewhostu- died forest trees in western North America were in a position to witness and track the process of domestication from its very beginning, instead of having to rely on fragmentaryarchaeologicalrecords. In 1971, WJL spent a sabbatical year at the New Zealand Forest Research Institute (FRI) with Ib Thulin, RDB and others in FRI’s Genetics and Tree Improvement(GTI)section.ThisgreatlyintensifiedWJL’sinterestinradiatapine, and he began to think about the radiata pine breeding being done in Australia and New Zealand in relation to its early domestication. During a mid-1971 tour of such work in Australia, guided by Ken Eldridge, he drafted his paper Domestication Strategies for Forest Trees (Libby 1973). Later that year, Thulin and WJL began to gather data for a paper on radiata pine, for the Genetics of … series promptedbythe InternationalUnionof Forestry Research Organisationsfor manyimportantforesttreespecies. WJLreturnedtoBerkeleybutwasfocusedonarevisionofI.M.Lerner’sbook, Heredity Evolution and Society, based in part on a course that he was by then teaching. The work onthegeneticsof radiata pineprogressedslowly, andstopped whenThulindied.ButWJLcontinuedtoworkonradiatapineasaresearchspecies, andthisledtoperiodicreturnstoNewZealand. During a 1991 visit to Rotorua and the FRI, the question of finishing Genetics of Radiata Pine was raised, and soon led to a year’s return to Rotorua with the GTIsectionofFRI. vii viii Preface In the mid-1990s, several long careers (including our own) of geneticists, silvi- culturists, breeders, plant propagators and others who engaged in the active domesticationofradiata pinewere drawing to aclose. So,whilewe allstill could, thisseemedagoodtimetojointlyreflectonwhatwehaddone,andwhy. This also seemed a time when the process of radiata pine domestication was passing through an important transition. The period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s was focused mostly on classical tree improvement as founded by the Scandinavian school, namely seed production by progeny-tested parents or families in open-pollinated seed orchards (Zobel and Talbert 1984; Libby 1973). As forest management increasingly responded to these better seedling trees, many programmes demanded even greater genetic control, and began substituting control-pollinated families or tested clones for orchard-run open-pollinated seeds. Theseinturnallowedrevolutionarynewwaysofdoingplantationforestry,includ- ing family forestry (Carson 1986) and full clonal forestry (Miller 1991; Ahuja and Libby 1993). These also required better and different propagation systems and, as greater genetic control of the propagules became available, these provide opportunitiesfordifferentdeploymentoptions.Finally,suchchangesledtofurther modifications in breeding strategies, in breeding plans, and in management of the radiatapineresource. Theamountofinformationavailableonradiatapine’sgeneticshadsoincreased between 1971 and 1992 that the “paper” had grown to be a book, and more. Amongotherthingsduring1992–1993,WJLwasmuchinfluencedbytheworkof RDB on the performance of samples of radiata pine’s native populations in New Zealand,andonthedevelopmentoflandracestherefromearlyintroductions.Ken Eldridge had been doing similar work with the native populations in Australia, andhadjustcompletedabookonthedomesticationofeucalypts. During 1992–1993, the demand for radiata pine wood on the Pacific Rim grew spectacularly, largely in response to the reduction in wood availability from wes- tern North America. This generated broad interest in the properties and husbandry of this promising new crop, and WJL attempted to develop the book to serve that broad interest group, as well as to serve a technical readership interested in the genetics and breeding of radiata pine. By 1994, when he again returned to New Zealand,itwasclearthatwritingforthisdualreadershipwasdifficult. InaseriesofmeetingsattheNewZealandFRIin1995,theideaofwritingtwo books was proposed and then developed. This refocusing was greatly helped by the insight that not only has FRI greatly contributed to the early domestication of radiatapinethroughitsworkinbreeding,silvicultureandmanagementofthisspe- cies, but also that radiata pine has played a large, even dominant, role in the crea- tion and development of FRI. With the 50th anniversary of FRI approaching in 1997, it seemed appropriate to focus a general-audience book on this important species. With the refocus in direction, it also seemed appropriate to include as authors two of the major participants in both understanding and creating radiata pine as a domesticated species, RDB from New Zealand and Ken Eldridge from Australia. Ken, however, had to withdraw from that role, and this led to the parti- cipationofAGBintheproject. Preface ix The original intent, to produce a radiata pine addition to the Genetics of series, waseffectivelysatisfiedbytheproceedingsofaworkshopheldinNewZealandin late 1997 (Burdon and Moore 1997). This Genetics of series has included treat- ments of many important and interesting forest trees, each summarizing genetic information available for its species. While these and many other forest tree spe- cies were being passively modifiedin their native ranges by suchhuman activities asselectiveharvesting(BurdonandLibby2006),by1997itwasclearthatamuch shorter list was being purposefully domesticated and extensively planted to serve humanpurposesandneeds.Radiatapineishighonthisshortlist.Thus,adifferent bookfocusingonthedevelopment,progressandextentofsuchpurposefuldomes- ticationofradiatapineseemedappropriate. After 1991, WJL’s other commitments consumed almost all his time, so the completion of the remainder of the project—this book—has taken far longer than any envisaged, and fell to RDB. The delay in completion, however, has allowed ustocoverfurthersignificantprogressindomestication,tocomplementtheearlier narrative. The countries that are most prominent in our story are New Zealand, Australia andChile. Wedonotclaimtohaveproducedacompleteorevenabalancedaccountofthe story. Two of us have been heavily involved in the New Zealand part of it, which hasdoubtlesscreatedabias.Indefence,wenotethat,exceptduringtheearlieryears, New Zealand has been involved in more than its share of innovation. Reasons for that are various, and include the greater national focus on a single tree species, the pre-eminentroleofasingle,nationalforestservice,andseveralbiologicalfactors. In Australia, the plantations and associated research and development were widely dispersed institutionally, geographically and ecologically. Plantation develop- ment was of particular interest in South Australia from the latter part of the 1800s and milling of the logs began in 1902; problems of nutrition and site man- agement arose early and have been addressed with significant success. An early start made on breeding has culminated in successful cooperative activity and in internationally adopted instruments (notably “SilviScan” for evaluating wood properties)andsoftware. In Chile, a great deal has happened, but relatively little is covered in formal publications, and still less in English. Moreover, Chile has tended to follow leads from New Zealand and Australia—often to great effect—although it is now involvedin“cutting-edge”innovations. Other countries, while they include significant growers, have not had the mas- sive commitment to radiata pine that is conducive to sustained, ground-breaking researchandinnovation.Accordingly,ourtreatmentoftheirworkwiththispineis often somewhat cursory and doubtless uneven. In general, our coverage of work doneessentiallyinthefootstepsofNewZealandworkisdeliberatelylimited. A lot of work was done, especially early on, addressing the use and properties of radiata pine for pulp and paper products. Over the years, however, solid-wood uses have become increasingly dominant, especially for the forest grower, so our treatmentisperhapsbiasedagainstpulping. x Preface The central role of radiata pine in the development of industrial plantation for- estry has provided the context for much research on forest operations, from land clearing, site preparation, through to wood harvesting. The same is true of huge advancesinmodelingandpredictionofgrowth,woodoutturnsandproductcharac- teristics, which have been made available in decision-aid and planning software. Such software, which has become increasingly proprietary, is also becoming pro- gressively more readily adapted for use with other plantation forest species and therefore less specific to radiata pine. Accordingly, we are not covering such developmentsinanydetail. Withliteraturereferenceswehave,asfaraswereasonablycould,triedtouseones that are widely available, mainly journal articles or books or chapters therein. Also, we have often cited works that serve either as examples or as syntheses of earlier work, rather than attempting exhaustive literature reviews ourselves. We have also stuck, as far as was practicable, withreferences that are in English. There are, how- ever,exceptions.Inparticular,wehavereliedsignificantlyonbulletinspublishedby the New Zealand FRI (now Scion), and leaflets and bulletins published by the Australian counterpart. The bulletins include formal conference proceedings. A pre- ference for citing FRI/Scion publications fits with the general online, open-access availability,incontrasttothesituationwithpublicationsfromorganisationsthathave suffered greater institutional changes. We have made minimal recourse to the “grey literature” comprising less formal conference or workshop proceedings. Moreover, someimportantmaterialrepresentsotherwiseundocumentedpersonalrecollections. The structuring into chapters on the basis of historical periods became less straightforward for the later periods. In defining the periods, we have given much weight to developments in genetic improvement. Even so, there is the difficulty thatcertaindevelopmentshaveoccurredatdifferenttimes amongthemaingrower countries. Nevertheless, the defined periods are used as a basis for stocktaking of the progress to date of domestication, which is done at the end of each chapter from2to7.Despitetheimportanceofindividualsandinstitutionsinahistory,our coverage of recent developments is more impersonal, in recognition of personal andcommercialsensitivities. Thisbookwasconceivedforavariedreadership.Thisincludedforestersinvar- ious countries, plant breeders within and beyond the area of tree breeding, mem- bers of the wider public with an interest in issues of sustainability, teachers in high schools and universities, and students in a range of disciplines. In countries extensively growingplantationsoramenityplantingsofradiatapine,itseemspos- sible that curious citizens as well as visitors may like to learn why and how it came to be so frequently planted. To help cater for a broad mix of readers, we have signposted the book with a detailed breakdown into headings, supplemented by the use of boxes in order to outline concepts underlying more specialized technical topics. Nevertheless, itis plannedtosupplement thisbook with ashorter one,aimedmoreatalayreadership. Readers may wish to dip into specific chapters rather than reading this book in its entirety. With this in mind, we have retained some overlaps between chapters, ratherthanrelyingsimplyoncross-referencingbetweensections.