Homegrown seed to kickstart new generation of Douglas fir trees

Groundbreaking breeding programme to develop new generation of British grown Douglas fir trees after decades of research.

Douglas fir is native to North America and has been used in British forestry for over 100 years. Demand is rising rapidly and currently; we import much of our seed from the USA or France and there is a need to develop a strain that is specialised for British conditions.

For decades there have been incomplete attempts to develop British Douglas fir seed sources suited to our conditions, but now a government funded project led by the Conifer Breeding Cooperative has overcome this and will grow the next generation of Douglas fir from British tree seeds.

The project involved the selection of 200 visually superior trees from the best Douglas fir plantations in Britain, as well as 40 genetically superior trees from long-term experiments managed by Forest Research.

This selection of outstanding Douglas firs will now be used by the Conifer Breeding Cooperative and Forest Research as breeding stock to produce British Douglas Fir seed. The chosen trees will be copied by grafting cuttings onto rootstocks, after the grafted plants will go into seed orchards. In several years, once seeds are available, they will be supplied to forest nurseries to grow the first genetically improved British Douglas fir trees. 

Richard Whittet, Head of Tree Breeding at Forest Research and Chair of the Conifer Breeding Cooperative, said:  

“We have selected a new generation of Douglas fir trees for breeding, based on their adaptation to the British climate and timber properties which is an important step forward for the resilience of our nation’s trees. 

“This achievement is the result of decades of work by Forest Research and our domestic and international partners. Collaboration has enabled us to get things done on the ground and harness new technologies, such as the low-cost DNA marker array for quality assurance.”

Sir William Worsley, Chair of the Forestry Commission, said: