Radiata Pine

Stand Select™ Seed

Over the past 4 years Proseed has established new OP orchards at Amberley. These contain top selections from the breeding programme rated for growth and wood quality characteristics. The first seed will be available in 2012. However it will be another 2-3 years before significant quantities of seed will be available. In the meantime, in expectation of increased demand arising from the ETS, Proseed is offering OP seed collected from stands established with CP seed of known parentage.

The position of the RPBC regarding Stand Select™ is outlined below.

RPBC AND Stand Select™ Seed

Open Pollinated seed, produced from specially designed and managed seed orchards, has been a means of delivering Radiata Pine Breeding Company (RPBC) germplasm to the market since the late 1960’s. These seed orchards were often established with a buffer of non-Radiata pine species in an endeavour to reduce the extent of pollen from outside the orchard ferilising female cones and thus parenting the resulting seed.

These orchards were subsequently supplemented by Control Pollinated orchards in the 1980’s. In these orchards, the female cones are bagged whilst still in an immature stage of development. When the cones were identified as being receptive, pollen from known RPBC parents is injected into the bags. As a consequence, not only are the breeding values and genetic characteristics of the maternal parents known but so also are those of the parental parents and the resulting seed.

In 1998, the RPBC developed the GF Plus® scheme to characterize control pollinated seed emanating from its tree improvement programme. This scheme presently describes such seed in terms of trait ratings for: tree growth, stem straightness, branch cluster frequency, resistance to infection by Dothistroma (a needle cast fungus) wood density and spiral grain.

The RPBC intends extending the GF Plus® system to other RPBC germplasm, notably open pollinated material and clones.

In 2008, the production of open pollinated seed unexpectedly failed to meet market demand, primarily due to the extent of felling of mature open pollinated seed orchards in preceeding years.

In order to enable forest nurseries to meet demand for improved tree stocks of lesser genetic quality than control pollinated material, the RPBC has decided to recognize a new brand of seed called Stand Select™.

To both qualify to carry the Stand Select™ brand and be certified by Scions Seed Certification Service, the seed must have been collected by an RPBC shareholder in accordance with a defined set of criteria that also authenticate both its source and the genetic quality of that source. The nature of the material from which the seed is collected (i.e. from thinnings or clearfelled trees) is also identified on the associated seed certificate.

As the parents have emanated from the RPBC’s tree breeding programme, the performance of the resulting seed is expected to be superior to that of genetically unimproved seed.

However, because there is relatively higher uncertainty concerning its exact parentage, the RPBC has decided that this seed will not be accorded a GF® or GF Plus® rating. Further, because of this uncertainty, the performance of the seed and resulting trees cannot be accurately compared to that of other RPBC germplasm.

Stand Select™ material (seed and plants) attracts an RPBC royalty in recognition of the fact that it is genetically improved as a consequence of the RPBC research and development programme, and those eligible for the royalty payment (i.e. non-RPBC shareholders) have not contributed directly to the cost of that programme. However, the level of that royalty (half that of open pollinated material) also recognises the lower level of certainty that can be confidently ascribed to its resulting performance.