Improving the next generation of beech for timber production

An update by Future Trees Trust, Forestry Technician, Ollie Stock

The project:

Future Trees Trust is selecting beech plus trees – superior individuals for timber – in England and Wales and collecting graftwood to establish the first seed orchard of beech in the UK, funded through the Forestry Commission’s Seed Sourcing Grant (SSG).

I started work with Future Trees Trust in June 2023 to deliver this project to produce the first qualified seed orchard for beech for the UK seed market. After an in induction into the qualities of beech plus trees and what to look for at the stand level, I set off across England and Wales in my quest to locate over fifty plus trees of outstanding timber properties which would be used to form the basic material of the future seed orchard. To start with, I concentrated in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, and the Cotswolds to the west, as these are areas known for their outstanding beech stands. Many of these are on the Forest Reproductive Material register, which was a useful starting point. As I gained confidence in my work, I have travelled further afield in selecting plus trees in North Wales, Devon, Norfolk and Cumbria.

Over eight days in January 2024, I took climbers from Ford Treescapes around 16 beech stands to collect scions (graftwood) from 28 of the selected beech trees. The climbers had to get to the outermost parts of the crown to identify one year old material for grafting. Material collected from these trees has been grafted in Kent by NIAB East Malling and will hopefully result in at least 8-10 clones of each plus tree, depending on the success of the grafts.

Photos: Tree climbers from Ford Treescapes, preparing to climb a beech plus tree at the Herriard Estate (left), and a climber up in the canopy of another beech plus tree, also at the Herriard Estate (Hampshire)

 

As the project moves into it’s second year, I will continue to select trees throughout Regions of Provenance 30 and 40 (essentially England and Wales). Some of these new selected trees will be climbed in January 2025. The focus for the climbing campaign next year will be to ensure we collect scion material from a wide geographical range to encompass as much genetic diversity in the breeding population as possible with the given parameters.

The grafted trees (see pictures below) will be planted in a seed orchard, enabling pollen from selected, excellent individuals to mix with one another. This means the seed collected from this orchard when mature (10-15 years) will have two parents of excellent quality. The next generation of beech from this orchard will be improved in form and vigour, sequestering more carbon and providing a higher quality of sawlog when they are felled. This orchard will provide the first improved beech seed in the UK, and this is something we are very excited about.

Thanks to a partnership between The Future Trees Trust and the National Trust, we are excited to be able to plant the beech seed orchard on land, near Uffington, in Oxfordshire. This is the first time we have land for our own trials and is a significant landmark in the life of the charity.

While visiting woodlands to select beech plus trees, we have also been on the look out for other ‘minor’ species. These include but are not limited to hornbeam, wild cherry, wild service, norway and field maple, and hawthorn. When we have a group of selected plus trees for these other species we can begin to consider and plan improvement programmes of these species.

For more information about this project please visit our project page here.