Some of the best individual trees continue to thrive 20 years after infection. Further refinements are expected as the breeding program continues, Hansen said, even though it's still not clear exactly what is giving the trees resistance to the fungus. But the fungus does appear to grow far more slowly in them, and our goal is to create trees that can live long enough to be ecologically viable and commercially useful. A 40-50 year old tree would be large enough for some commercial harvest, Hansen said. In continued studies, OSU scientists are trying to identify additional Port Orford cedar trees from low-elevation sites that may be showing evidence of fungus resistance, so they can improve the resistance mechanisms for future seedlings.
Plant breeding is always a continued race against pathogens as they develop and evolve.
But we think this approach has great potential to help re-establish this tree commercially and in its natural ecological role.