With deforestation continuing unabated and the demand for quality wood remaining on the rise, the success of efforts at regaining Philippine forest cover may lie on the quality of seedlings being planted to replace lost vegetation. The UPLB College of Forestry and Natural Resources (CFNR) has been pursuing this track of providing quality forest trees and other plants via tissue culture.

Dr. Portia Lapitan, director of the UPLB Forest Biotechnology Program, said: "We want planting materials that grow fast and perform very well under adverse conditions in the field. Although the work now is still in the experimental stages, the commercial scale production of quality forest species may soon be realized."

A tree physiologist and forest geneticist, Dr. Lapitan believes that biotechnology is necessary to meet the increasing demands for planting stocks. As of now, the Philippines is said to need an estimated 195.4 million seedlings a year to meet the annual planting target for 100,000 hectares. At present, there are not enough existing seed sources of forest species for reforestation and production in the country.

In the UPLB campus, the program’s modest laboratory is home to hundreds of glass bottles with tiny, cloned seedlings of various tree and non-tree species growing in modified Murashige and Skoog media. The Forest Biotechnology Laboratory has been operational since 2002 and has produced a number of valuable seedlings, all of which have been grown from tissue culture.

The seedlings come from germinated seeds of trees with superior quality. The tissue-cultured seedlings are expected to reach maturity earlier and perform better than the conventionally raised trees. They also retain the quality of the mother tree, including its disease and pest resistance.

The Forest and Biotechnology Program has developed tissue culture protocols for Acacia mangium (mangium), Gmelina arborea (yemane), Paraserianthes falcataria (falcate, Moluccan sau), Tectona grandis (teak), and Calamus (rattan) species. Future work will include species such as the Falcata tree (Paraserianthes falcataria), Jathropa, and the Moringa tree, commonly known as "malunggay." These will be developed to answer the need for sources of bio-fuel in the country.

According to Dr. Lapitan, the protocol for out-planting still has to be refined in order to ensure higher seedling survival. She and her team of scientists and researchers are now working to perfect the breeding and biotechnology work to develop and produce planting materials in order to meet the demand for reinstating the country’s forests and tree plantations.

At present, the program needs to find continued funding for its operations, which require around P500,000 to P800,000 a year. The team is looking at options to make the laboratory self-sustaining. Currently, it is being supported by donations from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and PCARRD.