Logo
Prev
Bookmark
Rotate
Print
Next
Contents
All Pages
Related Articles
Browse Issues
Help
Search
Home
'
National Geographic : 1974 Apr
Contents
of the early 1900's and then largely aban doned, now hold a new and rapidly maturing crop of trees (map, page 495). Technology gave a further boost: The chipping headsaw and the invention of a way to make plywood from southern pine added dollar values. But I found industry executives talking more about a new kind of forest-great plan tations where genetically improved trees are planted in rows like corn, carefully culti vated, and harvested by machines. Often nature's mixed hardwood-softwood stands are replaced with pine-only plan tations, which are much more efficient for cultivation and logging. Conservationists protest that removal of hardwoods destroys squirrel and turkey habitat, and that pine only forests are more vulnerable to disease. The new plantings are often "supertrees" seedlings bred to grow faster and straighter than nature's own (page 485). Marilyn Stands Tall in Alabama The process begins with foresters tramping the woods to find mature trees with superior characteristics to serve as progenitors. These are sometimes given names-"Father Abra ham," or "Marilyn Monroe." I gazed on Marilyn one day on International Paper Company lands near Mobile, Alabama. She was a sight to make a forester's mouth water: tall, straight, with a few light limbs that swayed gently against the blue southern sky. Forester Pat Smith explained how Marilyn's characteristics are passed on to coming generations. Marksmen use special bullets to shoot off high limbs; the branch tips (scions) are col lected and grafted onto young nursery stock and planted in seed orchards. Within a re markably few years-for the scions retain the maturity of their source-these trees begin to yield seed. It is collected, placed in nursery beds and cultivated for a year. Then the seed lings are planted by machine or by hand. The results? Dr. Bruce Zobel of North Carolina State University at Raleigh, who has coordinated the program for 31 com panies, told me: "We find a 10 to 20 percent improvement in growth, plus a 10 percent gain in mill production because of easier handling and better quality." Dr. Zobel and his colleagues now envision breeding trees for special uses: Trees with thin-walled tracheids (wood-fiber cells) for use in making fine papers, and trees with thick-walled tracheids for use in manufac turing sturdy boxes. But it will be some years before the impact of the genetically improved trees is felt: Only 700,000 acres are now planted with such trees, and they average about four years in age. Thinning comes at 10 to 15 years, harvest at about 25 to 30. In the meantime the South is still drawing its wood from traditional sources-mainly from small lot owners-a farmer with a wooded back forty, or a dentist who pur chased a hundred acres for investment. To see how this system works, I visited International Paper's divisional headquarters at Mobile. Woodlands manager Bob Non nemacher was scrambling for wood over the telephone. The huge Mobile Pulp and Paper Mill gobbles 2,200 cords a day-and only a day's supply stood in the once-crowded woodyard. The result of a timber shortage? "Nope," Bob replied. "Traditionally, we have felt no pinch in basic supplies-we can use the smaller trees, hardwoods, wood chips, and sawdust. In the past, paper shortages have been the result of mill capacity." Bob's problems included record floods that barred harvesting on thousands of acres, a growing scarcity of woods labor, and logis tics. He must juggle supplies from the com pany's own lands and hundreds of private ownerships; arrange transportation by barge, railcar, and truck; and coordinate the needs of International's other southern mills. One Man's Boom Is Another's Bane Ironically, the South's sawtimber boom in creased his problems: The new sawtimber and plywood mills offer top dollar both for wood and labor. Bob kept shifting between phone and computer. The insatiable monster was fed. However dramatic, industry's strides in the South will not keep pace with our grow ing demands. Where then might the wood come from? The Forest Service says that the greatest potential lies with the small lot own ers such as those in the South. More than four million private woodlots contain 41 percent of the nation's timber on 296 million acres, mainly east of the Mississippi. The yield from these lands could be doubled with proper management. But most owners simply sell off when they need the money and let nature do the regenerating. The Forest Service believes that technical and financial support from government and industry, Timber: How Much Is Enough? 503
Links
Archive
1974 May
1974 Mar
Navigation
Previous Page
Next Page