Araucaria Tree Improvement; Seed Production/Genetic Resources

with these plantation trees which were of Bulolo provenance. These were planted out in trial at the National Seed production area at Bulolo. • Research into nursery techniques with araucaria concentrated on germination techniques and that successfully we could pre-germinate both species int rays of damp sawdust and dibble out the germinating seed and produce a good seedling. • Direct sowing was possible with Klinkii as it was easy to judge and use viable seed because the seed coat was thin and able to judge its viability potential. • Hoop pine had a wood seed coat and unless freshly collected it was hard to judge its potential. • In all it was considered safer and better to pre-germinate both species. • Whether this system was ever fully adopted I do not know. However, the use of standard black polythene planting tubes continued. • Open rooted planting could be done on a limited extent. its success depended on good ground conditions, reliability of heavy rainfall at and after planting and the efficiency of the planter. Without all these conditions in place, the survival of the seedling could not be guaranteed.

Araucaria Tree Improvement; Seed Production and Genetic Resources Conservation

The pioneers of the araucaria tree breeding and seed production program were Mr Leon Clifford assisted by Mr John Thompson. Much to their credit they had established several clone banks and introduced araucaria patched grafting into PNG form the Queensland Forestry Department Australia. Their responsibility was to create clonal araucaria seed production areas using seed tree ortets selected for a range of important character states used for improvement of wood production and quality. Leon Clifford started the program off as early as 1960 and expanded selection and grafted from natural stands by 1963/64 with John Thompson assisting. Plantation ortet selection started in earnest around 1972. This excellent partnership was progressive. The added advantage was that John Thompson was responsible for • the araucaria seed collections • selection of useful phenotypes experimentally with exceedingly long internodes and multimodal types with more regular fine branches with internodes of approximately 3 m length (those over 6 m length could be unstable) for seed trees. • To ensure that the seed store was stocked, and the nurseries sufficiently supplied with seed • Be prepared to work long hours and travel to difficult places to collect seed when the Bulolo stands had low cone production years. (due to good and bad flowering cycles) Observations of the flowering of hoop and klinkii in the large stands in the Bulolo Valley and surrounds, allowed one to estimate production and seed in advance. The established plantations were not expected to produce seed for some time as crucial male flower production took something like 27 years form seedling to be viable. Similarly pollen volume was expected to be variable for some time. Much of the early work and decision making was based on Australian research.

Initially the most significant contribution to PNG was the technology transfer in terms of vegetative propagation of seed trees using patch grafting techniques with material taken from the apical leader of the stem. From these only erect orthotropic grafts could be made to produce ramets that developed into normal replicates of the parent tree (ortet). Leon was concerned about the conservation of the original gene pool and attempted to reproduce adult trees. He had