Desert forestry
This sandy, coarse, desiccated ground might seem
an inhospitable place to grow a forest
Driving east from Portland along Interstate 84, you notice the fir trees thinning out as the sheer walls of the Columbia Gorge begin to flatten. Around The Dalles, the landscape is gentler, rolling, frosted with sage and desert grasses. The conclusion seems simple: you have left tree country behind.
So the ocean of trees west and south of Boardman comes as something of a shock. Acres and acres of light-green poplar saplings, identical in height, identically spaced one from the next, flashing the bright undersides of their leaves in the stiff Gorge breeze.
This sandy, coarse, desiccated ground might seem an inhospitable place to grow a forest. But these poplars, intensively cross-bred to grow fast, thrive on water and fertilizers delivered through 18,000 miles of irrigation plumbing and 24 million drip emitters.
Cultivated from genetically identical cuttings, hybrid poplars grow like gangbusters--an average of 10 feet a year for six or seven years. Then they're cut down with a mechanized harvester and ground up for pulp, and new cuttings are planted to take their place.
"I never thought my forestry education would lead me here," says Potlatch's Jake Eaton (FM '82). Eaton is plant materials manager for this intensively cropped, short-rotation tree farm, which covers 35 square miles of central Oregon desert.
Companies like Potlatch, Boise Cascade, and Fort James have been farming hybrid poplar for more than a decade now, east and west of the Cascades. Such intensive cultivation represents forestry at its most high-tech.
And the tech promises to get higher as genetic engineering comes onto the scene. Tweaking the genes of these trees holds the promise of quickly improving their performance by adding such traits as resistance to herbicides and insect damage.
Other transgenic--that is, genetically altered--plants have already passed stringent government requirements to become part of the commercial cornucopia of America's farms. According to a July editorial in the journal Science, more than 40 percent of this country's corn, 50 percent of its cotton, and 45 percent of its soybeans planted this year will be genetically modified, "reducing the use of chemical pesticides by millions of pounds," the author notes.
Transgenic versions of potatoes also are here-- some of them grown just a few miles from the poplar plantations of Oregon's eastside desert. "We're eating transgenic French fries right now," says Steve Strauss, Forest Science professor and director of OSU's six-year-old Tree Genetic Engineering Research Cooperative, known by the ungainly acronym of TGERC.
But trees are still a genetic-engineering work in progress. Poplars are the first forest tree species to be considered as a potential transgenic commercial crop. And right now they remain just that: potentially commercial, says Larry Miller, research supervisor for Boise Cascade's hybrid poplar plantations, which cover about 18,500 acres (on both company-owned and leased lands) within a 50-mile radius of its pulp and paper mill at Wallula, Wash.
"Eventually we hope to grow them operationally," he says. "But that's a difficult road right now. A lot of issues have to be resolved first."
Potlatch and Boise Cascade got into the hybrid poplar business in the early 1990s, when logging cutbacks on federal lands seemed to portend a dwindling supply of wood fiber for paper manufacturing. To supply its pulp mill at Lewiston, Ida., Potlatch was buying residual wood fiber from sawmills that were dependent on federal timber. "Potlatch wanted an insurance policy," says Jake Eaton. "So we started to look at hybrid poplar."
The investment for both companies has come to millions of dollars. "We will have put in over $50 million before we ever see a chip," says Eaton, whose company will begin harvesting in January of 2001. Boise Cascade's plantations are already furnishing between one-fifth and one-fourth of the fiber used by its Wallula mill to make white paper.
Hybrid poplar may also show promise as a sawlog, says Eaton, for such products as furniture stock, molding, and veneer. The company is experimenting with various spacing trials, and also with pruning of the trees, to produce high-quality, knot-free wood.
Boise Cascade and Potlatch are charter members of TGERC, paying yearly dues of $25,500. They also support TGERC's research by planting and monitoring tests of genetically engineered trees. Two examples: trees that are unfazed by a herbicide shower, and trees that kill chewing bugs.
Keeping weeds down is critical for fast growth of poplars. Using genes acquired from Monsanto Corp., TGERC scientists have altered certain poplar clones--genetically identical hybrids--to make them resistant to glyphosate, one of the most widely used (and most environmentally benign) herbicide chemicals. Glyphosate, also made by Monsanto, is best known by its trade name of Roundup-Rª.
Normally, poplar plantations are weeded by cultivating between the trees, which can damage the drip tubes and the trees themselves. Weeds around the resistant trees can be sprayed, and if a little chemical gets onto the tree, there's no harm done. Commercial use of the herbicide-resistant trees could mean cheaper, more effective weed control.
Trees in other test plots have been altered by genes from a bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis. Bt, as it's known, has been marketed to organic farmers for years as a nonchemical insect repellent and insecticide.
Poplars are very susceptible to damage from the cottonwood leaf beetle, whose larvae chew on the leaves and the terminal leader--the tree's topmost stem. TGERC scientists have taken the gene that makes the Bt bacterium toxic to insects and incorporated it into the tree's own genetic library.
The Bt becomes part of the very tissue of the leaf, killing bugs that take a nibble. (The transgenic potatoes now being grown commercially also have been altered with Bt to make them resistant to the Colorado potato beetle.) Eventually such trees could be grown with much less use of chemical insecticides.
There are strict environmental regulations on using transgenic plants, even in test plantings. Any use of genetically engineered plants is overseen by the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The main worry is that transgenic trees will interbreed with those of the same species in the wild. To minimize this risk, TGERC is studying how genes "flow" from one population into another in nature. They're also working on developing trees that don't flower; sterility would eliminate the risk of interbreeding.
Another potential problem is that pest-resistant trees may inadvertently kill nontarget insects, or that pest insects will evolve and become immune to the effects of Bt. TGERC is studying the genetics of leaf beetles and working with entomologists to help determine the extent of these risks, says TGERC's Steve Strauss.
Public acceptance may be another roadblock. "That's why TGERC's research is so important," says Eaton. "We won't use any plant material operationally if it could harm the environment. Potlatch has a responsibility to maintain the quality of the environment."
Neither he nor Miller, however, has seen the kind of hysteria surrounding genetically altered plants that seems to exist in Britain and Europe (please see "Vandalism," next page). "This is farm country," says Miller, "and people tend to have realistic attitudes about agricultural issues. They stress the positive traits of transgenic products--such as the fact that you can use less insecticide, which is both cheaper and better for the environment."
Miller and Eaton praise TGERC for its solid science and its practical focus. "When we were approached by OSU five years ago, we signed on right away, and we've been there all along," says Miller. "We support them with our dues and our field trials, and they support us with their research."
Says Eaton, "That group is outstanding. They're top-of-the-line scientists with an international reputation. TGERC gives us a very big bang for our buck."