lloning works rs creating Df wood products

balance to stimulatebud, shoot androot formation.

While Simpson has invested about $4 million in research alone and $20 million in productivity enhancements in the last l5 years, the details ofhow it all works are top secret. However, they allow tours for customers and others interested in the welfare of the forest at the complex which is minutes away from their big Korbel, Ca., mill, east of Eureka.

Story at a Glance

Millionsof dollars in R&D pay off for Simpson Timber as their labs and nurseries produce better trees for rcforestation and fiber growth. .. emphasis is enhancement, not genetic change.

More than redwood is produced there via tissue cultures and seedlings. Douglas fir, Bishop pine, sweet gum and eucalyptus have all profited from their bio-technological touch.

Company research on eucalyptus resulted in the Tehama Fiber Farm being started in 1988. Its planting stock requirements are 550,000 annually compared to redwood and other conifer requirements of one millionyeady. One eucalyptus cutting has produced

720,000 plantlets and some of the trees have grown an astounding 37 feet tall in just three years, over 12feet per year. The average growth rate per year is 10 feet inheight and one inch in diameter.

More than 100,000 redwood plantlets were transfened to the forest in 1991, along with 1.5 milliontrees grown from seedlings. Since redwood naturally regenerates itselfin the forest, the lab andnursery produced trees are added as a supplement to nature's efforts. Neither the type of tree nor the balance of the forest is changed.

With the clones now growing, benefits from the long years of research and the millions of dollars of investments are beginning to pay off. The identical trees, all of them superior, will mean an ample and consistentsupply of excellent lumberand other wood products. As research continues, Simpson scientists say, the time needed to grow these marvelous specimens will decrease from a 60 year to a 30 year cycle sometime before the middle of the next century.

Presently Simpson is on a sustained yield basis, replacing and growing more wood fiber than they cut each year. As the quality of the forest is enhanced, a greater supply of wood products can be expected. Barring political interference, Simpson Timber in the years ahead will grow more and better trees on their 380,000 acres of forest land, continuing to supply today's needs and America's wood requirements into the distant future.