Forty-ninth Progress Report of the Cooperative Forest Tree Improvement Program

7 The year 2001 was one of change for the cooperative in many important ways. Industry consolidation and the shifts in land ownership patterns continued to accelerate. International Paper Company's acquisition of Champion International , which was actually completed in 2000, resulted in a loss of a cooperative member in 2001. Fortunately, this occurred without a corresponding loss of breeding material as International Paper Company assumed responsibility for testing Champion's selections. In fact, International Paper Company completed their first-generation progeny test establishment for a second time by planting the last series of Champion International selections. Land ownership patterns continued to change as industry attempted to divest itself of land that no longer supported its long-range goals. This resulted in several progeny tests changing hands including some of the most critical advanced-generation plantings. Again the cooperative was fortunate in that other members acquired the plantings and access for maintenance and measurement was assured. A second corporate merger with significance for the Western Gulf Forest Tree Improvement Program was the acquisition of The Timber Company by Plum Creek Corporation. This merger returned orchards to the cooperative that were dropped when Manville Corporation withdrew from membership in 1983. At least as traumatic as the industry consolidation was the change that the weather forced on the progeny testing program in Oklahoma and Arkansas. The region experienced back to back record-breaking ice storms in December 2000. This left many progeny test trees either leaning or with broken tops. The damage was so extensive that all plantings age 5 and older in Oklahoma were dropped from the program. While the damage in south Arkansas and northeast Texas was less severe, it covered a much larger area and resulted in abandoning several older tests (Figure 1). But once again the cooperative was extremely fortunate. In every single case, the tests that were abandoned had been measured at least once. In addition, most of the plantings had already been screened for second-generation selections. Losses to the advanced-generation progeny testing program were exacerbated by the damage to top grafts. Several crosses that should have been completed with the 2001 cone harvest will now have to be done over after the grafts are reestablished. In order to expedite test establishment, the cooperative took advantage of the fact that polymix crosses can be evaluated on a regional basis. Seed from five cooperators in the Oklahoma/Arkansas breeding region were combined into a …