[COLLOQUE] GENTREE Final Conference 27-31 January 2020 séance 31

GENTREE Final Conference : Hernan SERRANO-LEON - European Forest Institute Bordeaux · France

GENTREE Final Conference 'Genetics to the rescue - managing forests sustainably in a changing environment'

27-31 January 2020, Avignon, France

http://www.gentree-h2020.eu/

Hernan SERRANO-LEON - European Forest Institute Bordeaux · France : The economical potential of investing in breeding forest material : management effects and financial performance at stand level in 4 European study cases

Increasing the productivity of planted forests through sustainableintensification of forest management is essential to meet the growingdemand for wood and fiber resources and climate change mitigation.

One potential management option to address this demands is to investin improved forest reproductive material.

Investment on tree breedingmaterial, in comparison with the use of unimproved forestregeneration material, can enhance forest growth and resourcesquality while improving tree survival to adverse conditions,resulting on a reduction of the required area for productive land. Weanalyzed the effects of using genetically improved material in termsof silvicultural management, wood production and economic impact fromthe perspective of the forest owners.

Our research focused on fourstudy cases in Europe with developed breeding programs coveringdifferent biogeographical regions and management contexts in Europe:Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) in Finland, Sweden and Central France,and maritime pine (Pinus pinaster) in French Landes.

We considereddifferent genetic scenarios that represent the expected gains at theend of the rotation estimated for the available and new generationsof breeding seed orchards material.

The growth development ofimproved stands was simulated by incorporating the reported geneticgains in widely-used forest simulation software assuming standardforest management guidelines.

The financial performance was assessedconsidering a robust sensitivity analysis for different wood pricescenarios. Despite large economic differences between cases, theinvestment in breeding material resulted in a greater financialperformance than the unimproved reference material regardless of thestudy case and considered price scenarios.

The level of genetic gainhad a high impact on the financial performance, with higherprofitability when using material from the new breeding generations.

This is due to the higher productivity or earlier incomes from usingimproved material, as well as its negligible extra seedling cost. Inaddition to the higher profitability, a higher financial stabilityagainst the price fluctuations in comparison with using unimprovedmaterial can be especially important to reduce the economic impact ofunexpected changes in global wood markets.

The financial possibilityto reduce rotation ages also allows a more flexible silviculturalresponse to reduce the risk of natural disasters, and adapt touncertain future climatic and socioeconomic conditions, as well asprofiting earlier from the new breeding generations with improvedgenetic gains or adaptation.

Further economic research consideringthe performance of current genetic material under future climate andthe economic trade-offs with multiple breeding objectives canencourage the forest sector to invest in innovative forest geneticresources for a sustainable management intensification.