Authored by Austin Heine
Austin Heine is the Reforestation Advisor for North Carolina and Virginia.
Austin has been a crucial member of the ArborGen Reforestation Team for two years. Before becoming the Reforestation Advisor for North Carolina and Virginia, he worked with the NC State tree improvement cooperative for eight years.
As many of you reading this know, ArborGen grows millions of seedlings yearly for landowners in the US South. You may not know the extensive history of genetic improvement that has made these seedlings unique. ArborGen’s breeding program stands on the shoulders of giants as the germplasm (the genetic material such as tissue and seeds) of ArborGen’s breeding program is a product of the many companies that came before it, many of which some of our readers likely worked for. Companies like Champion International, Federal Paper Board, Union Camp, West Virginia Pulp & Paper Corp., Halifax Paper Co., Riegel Paper Corp., Georgia Kraft Co., Mead Paper Board Co., Hammermill Paper Co., Westvaco Corp., St. Regis Paper Co., CellFor, and International Paper Company developed the foundation of ArborGen’s breeding program.
ArborGen is also a member of several university tree breeding cooperatives, such as the NCSU Cooperative Tree Improvement Program, the Cooperative Forest Genetics Research Program in Florida, and the Western Gulf Forest Tree Improvement Program. These programs work collaboratively with other member companies to enhance the breeding population that each is working with. As these cooperative populations continue to improve, ArborGen selects the best material from them and weaves them into its internal breeding program to deliver its clients the best combination of growth, form, and disease resistance possible.
An example of this is ArborGen’s best available controlled-pollinated seedlings, MCP® 2.0. Most of the crosses that make up MCP-2.0 involve at least one internal selection from ArborGen’s breeding program. These internal selections were bred, tested, and selected in ArborGen progeny trials. This unique combination of alleles that makes up these internal selections exists nowhere else (no different than you being a unique combination of alleles that make you different from everyone you meet unless you have an identical twin!). MCP-2.0 combines the best internal and cooperative selections to deliver superior volume production, stem straightness, fusiform rust resistance, and reduced forking. When choosing to plant MCP-2.0, you can have confidence that you will be ready for any future market and have the ArborGen advantage by benefiting from the legacy tree improvement programs that worked hard to create this product!
MCP-2.0 family AGM-206 at the end of the second growing season in a genetic demonstration plot in Decatur County, GA. AGM-206 is one example of an ArborGen internal selection combined with an elite selection from a university breeding program. Shown here is SC & East GA Reforestation Advisor Drew Fasano, who is 6’4” in a block plot of AGM-206.
ArborGen’s performance grade sheet for MCP-2.0 family AGM-206 against the CCC- Coastal region checklot. These grade sheets provide data to customers based on their performance in ArborGen’s internal testing program.
