New facility to benefit
hardwood tree research
By Ian Clift
Summer Reporter
Tree researchers will have a new facility for the
observation of blight-resistant chestnut and fast-growing black cherry
trees.
The Martell Forest Research and Education Center,
to be built spring of 2002, will be located eight miles from campus
on the 425 acres Martell Forest, and the 290 acres Purdue Wildlife Area.
The facility will allow forestry and wildlife researchers convenient
access to tree plantations.
The Purdue-owned land is used to study hardwood
tree plantations of species indigenous to Indiana, such as black walnut,
black cherry, and American chestnut, as well as a few exotic species.
"We also have natural forest out there that the students use," said
Dennis LeMaster, head of the department of forestry and natural resources.
"And I expect wildlife students to make just as much use of this facility
as our forestry students."
Keith Woeste, a scientist for the Hardwood Tree
Improvement and Recognition Center of the United States Department of
Agriculture, works with Purdue at the proposed facility site to develop
faster growing and straighter black walnut trees for the lumber industry.
"The goal of our program was to identify a breed of superior black walnut
for land owners."
He also works with the American Chestnut Foundation
in an attempt to replant the American chestnut throughout the eastern
United States.
"In a way, the forests we have now are not the
natural forests," Woeste said. "They are a result of an epidemic."
The American chestnut tree was the dominant tree
in the eastern United States until around the turn of the century when
the chestnut blight, caused by a fungus carried on European chestnut
trees, came to the United States.
The department performs crosses on chestnut trees
and then scientists, such as Woeste, perform tests on them to see which
are resistant to the plant disease. "Three fourths of the trees will
not be resistant," said Woeste. "The resistant ones will be crossed
for seed and for future testing."
"They were a part of pioneer life," said Woeste
recounting chestnuts roasting over an open fire, "but now they're almost
gone. We are in the last stages of the breeding program, and we're transitioning
now to test replanting in parts of Indiana."
The research facility, with an estimated cost of
3.7 million, will contain a head house, a research laboratory, a teaching
laboratory, and office space for 10 scientists.
Two two-bay greenhouses will also be built, allowing
forestry scientists to move from the horticulture greenhouses, where
they currently experiment in finding ways to make hardwood trees grow
their own roots.
Woeste said, "It will give my field technicians
and researchers a lab out there where they can do their work."
The facility will be used to collect and examine
specimens on site, said LeMaster. It will be used to conduct research
on the existing plantations, provide teaching laboratories for students
working in the field, and provide a conference facility whereby researchers
could go out in the field and show people what they are working on.
"This really opens up the opportunity for more
hands-on learning by our students and furthermore, if we plan to expand
our hardwood project we have to have this facility," LeMaster said.
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