Super tree development by pyramiding heterologous functional genes

Continuous degradation of forest in both quality and quantity threatens wood security in the future. Thus in the future, most wood and pulp will be expected to be produced from plantation forests. We attempt to produce superior trees suitable for such plantations with maximum productivity in limited land area. Tree productivity could be enhanced either by promoting growth and wood quality or by reducing loss caused by abiotic and biotic stresses. Genetic transformation techniques may offer ways to improve the productivity by enabling trees to tolerate the stresses or to covert limited resources into big biomass. With the availability of information on various functional genes and gene transfer techniques, it should be possible to develop such trees. In this presentation, our work to produce such trees at Korea Forest Research Institute is briefly introduced.