Gender sources Forestry – starting material, pilot plots and basic collections – version 1.0

For several decades, the Institute for Nature and Forestry Research (INBO) has been in charge of the construction, selection and management of living collections of trees and bushes. These collections serve a threefold purpose, in particular i. Basic material ii. Prove plots and iii. Basic collections.Exit materialBosBuilding material includes living collections of trees and bushes that form the basis for the production of forest reproductive material such as seeds, parts of plants and planting stock. In application of the Flemish Government Decree on the procedure for the recognition of basic forest material and the marketing of forest reproductive material (3 October 2003), propagating material placed on the market may only be harvested on recognised basic materials.The approved basic material is entered as an ‘approved unit’ with a unique reference code in the Register of Basic Forestry Material endorsed by the INBO. ProefpercelesIn 1948, a selection and breeding programme around poplar was developed to the INBO (then Institute for Populier Farming) aimed at producing poplar wages characterised by high quality and high quality wood production. From the 80s, this breeding programme was further extended to other economically important tree species such as willow, forest cherries, common eels, black skirts, common maple and wintereid.There was support for this breeding study numerous field trials, measuring and observing several forest-relevant characteristics (growth strength, shape, disease resistance, phenology).In the context of climate change, additional field trials have been carried out for several years. The objective is to capture the adaptability of tree and shrubs by carrying out observations in years with different climatic conditions and in field trials on very different stands. On the one hand, these highly valuable collections formed the basis of years of breeding programmes of economically valuable tree species with the ultimate aim of selecting or creating genetic high quality basic material. On the other hand, several collections were more recently created to preserve valuable (indigenous) genotypes and/or populations of native tree and shrubs.