How fungus ‘nurses’ new forests

Press, 26 March 1981, Page 17

How fungus ‘nurses’ new forests

By

THOMAS LAND

“Observer,” London

Scientists have developed a technique of using fungus to enable quick-growing pines to colonise tropical wastelands. The fungus, planted around the base of the trees, acts as a “larder,” providing nutrients through the pines’ roots. The technique, evolved at the Commonwealth Forestry Institute in Oxford, England, has already been tested in nursery and field trials in Africa and Asia. To ensure maximum growth, scientists seek to identify specific strains of fungus for each location. More than 50 tropical countries already plant the two most important afforestation pines, the Caribbean (Pinus caribaea) and the Ocote (Pinus ocoarpa). These species are being studied in a three-year survey in Central America, undertaken jointly «■ by Britain’s Overseas Devel- 1 opment Administration and ■; the National School of Forest 1 Sciences in Honduras. * A wide range of fungus has been collected by the Oxford forestry institute. It works closely with the Commonwealth Mycological Institute to identify promising new strains. The need for timber is a priority in many developing countries, where wood and dung provide the main, or, only, source of local energy.; In some developing regions, vast forests have been de-, stroyed for firewood, build-1 ing materials, and agricul-| tural land.

J? The damage . can be counterbalanced to some extent through the establishment of plantations of quickgrowing trees, particularly in areas where the soil is too poor for agriculture. A specialist explains: “Pines are able to colonise such soils because of mycorrhizas (a fungus which has a symbiotic relationship with trees). Seedlings grown in soils inoculated with the spores of selected strains of mycorrhizas can be expected to grow more quickly.” The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that the annual loss of the world’s tropical forests is at a constantly escalating rate which has now surpassed 15 million hectares. Other authorities put the figure much higher. * Such a trend, if allowed to « continue, might deprive man- ; kind of an “inestimable reservoir” of resources that could be exploited to provide new foods, medicines, textiles and raw materials. It could also lead to the loss of many animal and plant species, and threatens widespread soil erosion and the creation of new deserts, which in turn could. affect global weather patterns. United Nation specialists 1 predict a 75 per cent increase in the world consumption of forest products in the i next 15 years. Timber felling i on such a scale would court ecological disaster.