Ed/Gaines- Unfortunately, it seems that in the short term, all our machinations have little effect, good or bad...
-Don From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ENTS] Re: White pine growth rates--something of interest about growth possibilities Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 16:43:52 -0500 Gaines, Basically, No you are incorrect. In order to change the genetic footprint of the species you would need to cut only those superior trees, kill all of their offspring, and not cut any of the poorer quality trees, over the course of tens of generations. Essentially all of the big trees in a stand were cut, so there was no selection. The genetics of the big trees having been there for hundreds of years would be represented in the smaller trees that were too small to cut. Even after the initial trees were removed, those trees with superior genetics would tend to out-compete those that were the offspring of poorer trees and would dominate the second growth forest. If you did this a hundred times you would not get a genetic drift, .unless you were targeting a specific genetic definable trait while at the same time leaving all of the other competing traits intact, People have suggested this before, and the idea is simply wrong. You can't change the genetic footprint by cutting all of the big pines, and it is unlikely that targeted high grading would even have a noticeable effect without dozens of generations of repetition. There are specific environmental effects that can cause a genetic drift, but not generic logging operations. Ed Frank http://nature-web-network.blogspot.com/ http://primalforests.ning.com/ http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=709156957 First: with some species of trees, the 'superior' individual trees produce offspring that also show superior growth traits. This is true of some species, not others, for reasons I am not sure anyone really understands. But it is possible that when white pines were originally, and subsequently, cut down, it was the best trees that were cut. With white pine the potential shipmast trees were cut first. This kind of "high grading" can result in a degredation of the genetic strain. The white pines we see today may not have as high a proportion of the "superior genes" as previous stands. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390707/direct/01/
