Estonian tree breeding program aims for tougher, faster-growing trees

Researchers and the State Forest Management Center (RMK) are working together to breed hardier, faster-growing trees for Estonia's future forests.

The collaboration focuses on spruce, pine, silver birch and black alder, with researchers from the Estonian University of Life Sciences (EMÜ) and the RMK working to boost growth rates, timber quality and resistance to disease and climate stress.

But results will take time: the full cycle from breeding to improved planting material can stretch up to 40 years, with Estonia currently about halfway through the process.

The RMK manages Estonia's national forest seed reserve, which supplies seeds to forest owners and nurseries.

The agency has already made progress improving planting material quality, establishing new seed orchards and working with researchers on breeding trials.

It also recently opened a seed production base near Viljandi and is expanding to include a forest seed and nursery unit and a silviculture department.

"If we establish higher-generation seed orchards, forest productivity can increase by 10–30 percent depending on the species," said RMK seed management chief Aivo Vares.

However, such seed will definitely be more expensive than regular forest seed, he added, pointing to the high production costs involved.

Estonia is also catching up with neighboring Latvia and Lithuania, which started similar work earlier. New orchards will gradually replace older ones as they are phased out.

"Spruce seed orchards only start producing usable seeds at around 20 years," said Tiit Maaten, chief specialist in forest tree improvement at EMÜ.

"Add 15-year trial periods to the 20-plus years until they start producing cones, and that's 35–40 years already," he added.

He said pines develop faster, with improved seeds potentially available by around 2042.