For the First Time, Genetically Modified Trees Have Been Planted in a US Forest

Genetically modified seedlings from biotechnology company Living Carbon have been planted in a low-lying tract of southern Georgia's pine belt. According to a paper that has yet to be peer reviewed, these trees are engineered to grow 50 percent faster than non-modified ones over five months in the greenhouse. The New York Times reports: The poplars may be the first genetically modified trees planted in the United States outside of a research trial or a commercial fruit orchard. Just as the introduction of the Flavr Savr tomato in 1994 introduced a new industry of genetically modified food crops, the tree planters on Monday hope to transform forestry. Living Carbon, a San Francisco-based biotechnology company that produced the poplars, intends for its trees to be a large-scale solution to climate change. 'We've had people tell us it's impossible,' Maddie Hall, the company's co-founder and chief executive, said of her dream to deploy genetic engineering on behalf of the climate. But she and her colleagues have also found believers -- enough to invest $36 million in the four-year-old company.

The company's researchers created the greenhouse-tested trees using a bacterium that splices foreign DNA into another organism's genome. But for the trees they planted in Georgia, they turned to an older and cruder technique known as the gene gun method, which essentially blasts foreign genes into the trees' chromosomes. In a field accustomed to glacial progress and heavy regulation, Living Carbon has moved fast and freely. The gene gun-modified poplars avoided a set of federal regulations of genetically modified organisms that can stall biotech projects for years. (Those regulations have since been revised.) By contrast, a team of scientists who genetically engineered a blight-resistant chestnut tree using the same bacterium method employed earlier by Living Carbon have been awaiting a decision since 2020.

In contrast to fast-growing pines, hardwoods that grow in bottomlands like these produce wood so slowly that a landowner might get only one harvest in a lifetime, said [Vince Stanley, a seventh-generation farmer who manages more than 25,000 forested acres in Georgia's pine belt]. He hopes Living Carbon's 'elite seedlings' will allow him to grow bottomland trees and make money faster. 'We're taking a timber rotation of 50 to 60 years and we're cutting that in half,' he said. 'It's totally a win-win.' The U.S. Forest Service, which plants large numbers of trees every year, has said little about whether it would use engineered trees. To be considered for planting in national forests, which make up nearly a fifth of U.S. forestland, Living Carbon's trees would need to align with existing management plans that typically prioritize forest health and diversity over reducing the amount of atmospheric carbon, said Dana Nelson, a geneticist with the service. 'I find it hard to imagine that it would be a good fit on a national forest,' Dr. Nelson said. Living Carbon is focusing for now on private land, where it will face fewer hurdles. Later this spring it will plant poplars on abandoned coal mines in Pennsylvania. By next year Ms. Hall and Mr. Mellor hope to be putting millions of trees in the ground. The report notes that the modified trees are all female, 'so they won't produce pollen.'

'They're also being planted alongside native trees like sweet gum, tulip trees and bald cypress, to avoid genetically identical stands of trees known as monocultures; non-engineered poplars are being planted as experimental controls.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.