The environment department targets further enhancing survival rate of tree seedlings for government’s ongoing 2011-2016 National Greening Program (NGP), recognizing such improvement is essential to the success of Philippine reforestation.
“We’ll pursue more research on the matter,” said Dr. Rafael Cadiz, Supervising Science Research Specialist of the department’s Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau (ERDB), the agency tasked with overseeing and spearheading production of quality planting materials.
He noted that such research is due as some tree species’ survival rates are below the 80 percent the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) targeted for NGP.
Studies show good-quality seedlings have better survival and growth unlike poor-quality ones. “To help attain high survival rate in forests, we must use healthy and vigorous seedlings,” Cadiz noted.
Launched in 2011, NGP aims reforesting some 1.5 million hectares of open, denuded and degraded land nationwide.
Government institutionalized NGP through Executive Order 26 series of 2011 to help promote poverty reduction, food security, livelihood development, biodiversity conservation as well as climate change adaptation and mitigation.
NGP requires planting an estimated 1.5 billion seedlings of indigenous and exotic tree species. To meet such requirement, DENR is spearheading nationwide clonal propagation activities for mass production of good-quality and genetically superior NGP seedlings.
“Cloning is the process of duplicating an organism to produce similar ones -what’s generated are copies of the original source,” Cadiz said.
He noted cloning is needed as deforested Philippines already has limited sources of germplasm or living tissue from which new trees can be grown. Such living tissue can be either seeds or parts of plants to be mass-produced.
“We’re able to gather only very few number of seeds or wildings,” Cadiz said. Inaccessible location of mother trees and species’ differing flowering intervals also raise need for cloning to help meet NGP seedling requirements, he continued.
Authorities concerned set propagation protocols for clonal production of good-quality planting stock for NGP. “Those protocols detail how to propagate certain plant species to ensure high survival,” Cadiz said.
ERDB earlier reported establishing new clonal facilities as well as rehabilitating and expanding existing ones and nurseries as well to help boost cloned NGP seedling production through macrosomatic and microsomatic propagation techniques.
Macrosomatic propagation uses cuttings from chosen parent plants while the microsomatic technique involves tissue culture, ERDB noted. “On a national scale, the regional clonal facilities including ERDB will have a total production capacity of about 600,000 seedlings per year,” ERDB said.
ERDB said source of planting materials for cloning are different regions’ hedge gardens established under supervision of its Ecosystems Research and Development Services. “Propagation’s done particularly for indigenous and endangered species such as kamagong (Diospyros discolor), molave (Vitex parviflora), toog (Petersianthus quadrialatus), Philippine teak (Tectona philippinensis) and some dipterocarp species,” ERDB continued.
In line with the social mobilization strategy government set for helping carry out NGP, DENR earlier commenced partnering with state universities and colleges (SUCs) nationwide on producing additional cloned NGP seedlings.
DENR said among SUCs that committed establishing respective clonal nurseries for the purpose are Apayao State College, Kalinga-Apayao State College, Mariano Marcos State University, Isabela State University, PampangaAgricultural College and Ramon Magsaysay Technological University.
Southern Luzon State University, Western Philippines University, Bicol University, Bohol Island State University, Negros Oriental State University, University of Eastern Philippines and Caraga State University also made the same commitment, DENR added. [PNA]
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