Highlights – TBGRC 2006-2007 Annual Meeting and Report

• Grant support strong
  - 1.2 million in 06-07
  - Industry funds ~8% of total: Great leverage continues!

• New grant on analysis of regulations governing tree biotechnology (92K, Resources for the Future)

• New grant on impact assessment of GMOs on wildlands (45K, US Forest Service, D. Harry PI)

• Continued funds for biotech outreach web site and lectures (20K, OSU Ag)

• New grant on taping lectures for streaming on outreach web site (10K, Am Soc Plant Biology)

• Success in Center for Advanced Forestry, CAFS Center (~25k/yr, National Science Foundation)

• Success in obtaining USDA APHIS permit for field trials of flowering trees of many types

• Strong participation in natl/intl regulatory-biosafety activities: Biodiversity Protocol, FSC policy, Natl Res Council Committees, Inst Forest Biotechnology, Pew Initiative

• High quality of field study of yield and competition in GA-inhibited, semi-dwarf trees

• Strong growth effects seen in the greenhouse from insertion of native poplar GA genes

• Strong, narrow crown domestication phenotypes seen in phytochrome B-RNAi field study

• High quality of field study, new mutants seen, in new study of activation-tagged trees

• Excellent survival in newly planted field study of sterile sweetgum (Liquidambar)

• Clone bank established with >1,000 events, >5,000 trees, with sterility genes in poplar

• Continued strong pollen reduction in 10-year old male-sterile transgenic poplar trees in field trial

• Marked changes in wood quality and growth in lignin-modified, antisense-4CL trees in field trial