Appendix II-B 
Genetics and the Forest Products 
Industry Case Study 
! 
The Weyerhaeuser Co. 
The \\ everliaeuser t\).. u hicli has its main head- 
(luarlers in Centralia. Wash,, is llie largest forest 
piodiu'ts company in the I'nited States. In 1970, 
Weyerhaeuser initiated a program to research the 
! mass propagation of Douglas fir trees hy tissue 
culture. Douglas firs are the main species in many of 
the .Nation's forests, o\er S3.1 hillion (or about 8.5 
billion hoard feet) woi th were har\ested in 1979. 
W bile they are normally [)ro[)agated by seed in the 
field, the classical dexelopment of impro\ed seed 
does not adequately satisfy the criteria of the rapid 
a\ ailahility of trees of superior ciuality. 
Specially selected clones ha\e the potential to dou- 
ble the [)roducti\ ity of forestlands: each yeai' that 
unimproved trees are [)lanted is another year of 
' "suboptimum " har\ ests 41) years from now . W ith the 
steadily increasing demand for forest products, 
planting substantially improxed trees as soon as pos- 
sible is of great economic importance. 
V\ everhaeuser's tissue culture research began in 
1974 w ith a project at the Institute of Paper Chem- 
istry to produce Douglas firs. The project was ex- 
panded w ith a contract for additional research at the 
Oregon Graduate Center. .Although the intention w as 
! to propagate select strains of mature trees, the main 
focus of the program, in 1974 to 1978, was to de\el- 
op a basic, consistent system for propagation. From 
1978 to the present, Weyerhaeuser has been con- 
I ducting most of its applied research into Douglas firs 
’ at its ow n research facilities in Centralia, Wash. Basic 
research is still being funded at the Institute of Paper 
j Chemistry, which serx ices the entire forest industry. 
W hile specific figures for the tissue culture systems 
research haxe not been made available, the annual 
research and development budget at Weyerhaeuser 
specifically for biological xvork xx ith forest species is 
on the order of S7 million to S8 million.* 
The project in mass propagation of Douglas fir by 
tissue culture xxas initiated to establish a reliable, 
economic means for mass production of superior 
trees. The cloning of these trees could bring higher 
'Rex XIcCulloiigh. The W eyerhaeuser Co., personal communication (.Xlay 
1980) with the Plant Resources Institute in the working report. Commercial 
L'ses of Plant Tissue Culture and Potential Impact of Genetic Engineering on 
Forestry, prepared under contract to O I' X, 1980. 
yields and shorter harvest cycles, as well as rapid 
production of tree stands for seed production. 
The immediate results of 10 years of research are 
not overly impressive at first glance. To date, 3,000 
tissue-cultured Douglas firs have been planted for 
comparison analysis and research of handling tech- 
niciues, transfer procedures, etc. 
The cost effectiveness of a tissue culture program 
is determined by several factors, of which labor in- 
tensity xaries the most. The more streamlined the 
system can be made, the fewer labor-requiring steps 
that are needed— the less direct costs will be in- 
curred. Ideally, cells xvould be cultured in sterile con- 
ditions and then planted for the direct embryogene- 
sis of plantlets that are ready for the field. Steps that 
inx olx e cutting shoots and rooting them on another 
media or repeated subculturing procedures are cost- 
ly and cumbersome. The major problem affecting 
cost so far is the difficulty of achieving high volume 
plant regeneration from the tissue cultures. Efficient 
systems xvith more successful regeneration will re- 
duce the labor and materials involved in culturing 
and result ultimately in a lower cost per plant. 
In addition to problems of cost, Weyerhaeuser has 
run into the classic difficulty with woody species— 
the inability to obtain required results from plants 
more than 1 year old. In addition, the risk of induced 
genetic variability increases wdth every subculture of 
the tissues. The triggering techniques for effective 
manipulation of mature versus embryonic and imma- 
ture tree tissues are not well understood, and un- 
locking the Douglas fir system may well provide in- 
sight into some basic physiological questions. 
Some commercial companies do not want to get 
deeply involved in basic research because it is ex- 
tremely expensive and time-consuming. However, it 
has been up to the major forestry companies, such as 
Weyerhaeuser, to independently fund essentially 
basic research into the biological triggers for organo- 
genesis and embryogenesis of Douglas fir. 
By comparison, no other plant bas been as intense- 
ly researched for mass propagation purposes and 
proved so unyielding. Among other things, this in- 
dicates that questions of basic plant cell physiology 
xvill have to be addressed before major break- 
throughs can be expected. The goals of the Weyer- 
haeuser program are exacting and demand the re- 
finement of present techniques into a precise in- 
307 
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