Enhanced measurement approaches for assessing gains in spruce provenance trials

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The Canadian forest industry is worth $57 billion dollars, employs over 230,000 Canadians, and contributes over 10% of the Gross Domestic Product. Critical to the industry is the quality of the 650 million seedlings planted every year. Individual tree evaluation in progeny and provenance trials are essential for ranking and selecting the best genotypes and populations to ensure maximum target growth and yield attributes and adaptation, a critical endeavor for sustainable forest management decisions. This project is a unique collaboration across the forest genetics value chain between UBC, the BC Forest Improvement and Research Management Branch and FYBR Solutions, a forest analytics company, with the aim of developing and demonstrating innovative, and ultimately, operational approaches to measure characteristics of Spruce trees grown from natural stand and genetically selected populations, planted across BC and the Yukon. By developing new approaches to more quickly, effectively and accurately measure the height, diameter, and crown dimensions of provenance trials, this project will position Canada as a global forest genetics leader, not only in the genetic improvement of critical, economically valuable forest tree species, but in the field of seed breeding and climate adaption.