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Only seven months after last year's veld fires in the Lowveld, some species in the CSIR breeding orchard at Sappi's Mapiep plantation have shown a remarkable recovery.
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CSIR tree-breeding technologists Brian Peirce and Chris Komakech had to break the news about the veld fires to the rest of the research team in August last year. In April this year the two of them were impressed to see how the breeding orchard has recovered, with some species even flowering already.
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The tree-breeding research team can sit in the shade of their trees again - only seven months after last year's devastating veld fires in the Lowveld. From the left, Chris Komakech, Cyndi Snedden, Steve Verryn, Isaac Shabangu, Brian Pierce, Amith Sivlal and Joseph Nyundu.
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Sometimes Mother Nature needs to be cruel to be kind.
As the CSIR's tree improvement research team members sat in the shade of their precious trees at the Mapiep tree breeding station earlier this month, they could hardly believe their eyes.
Only seven months before, the same team of, then very despondent, researchers surveyed the devastation wrought by raging veld fires in the forestry plantations around Nelspruit.
The Lowveld was declared a disaster area after veld fires destroyed about 11 000 hectares of pine plantations and at least 10 000 hectares of bluegum plantations, leaving a total area of 41 000 hectares burned soot black. The cost to the forestry and related industries were estimated at R2.8 billion.
In the early hours of the morning of 31 August one of those fires raged through five CSIR breeding trials and the CSIR breeding archive on Sappi's Mapiep plantation just outside Nelspruit.
Mapiep is the field laboratory for major local research programmes such as Project Pulp (a research partnership with NCT Forestry Co-operative Limited), Project Hybrid Resources (with Hans Merensky) and the Pine Platform (with industry partner York Timbers).
Project Pulp aims to significantly improve the pulp value of wood, while Project Hybrid Resources aims to develop fast-growing, high quality saw timber.
Shock and recovery
"We were shocked when we heard the news," says researcher Cyndi Snedden. "Even more so because our MSc-student did all his field research there and we knew he would be devastated."
When Amith Sivlal came back from a day's leave he could immediately sense from his colleagues' body language that something was wrong. "I was shocked! I invested two years of hard field work, hundreds of pine cones. It takes two years for the seeds to develop to maturity and my entire study was set to have been based on those seed cones. It was all lost."
But with the help and support of his colleagues, he went back to the drawing board and his key research questions: "In a sense the fire helped me to focus more clearly. I didn't need to change my project or wait another two years. The research is now much more focused and specific," Sivlal says.
New research angles
Although valuable research material and intellectual property were lost to the fire, the team decided to assess the damage and take the opportunity to study the biological response of the trees to the fire: Which genetic resources survived, if any? Which seed sources survived? Is there a degree of fire tolerance in some eucalypts? What was the impact of the fire on flowering in the surviving trees?
"We came in a month after the fire and did an assessment of the damage to the trees and signs of regrowth. The trees were scored as scorched, burnt or severely burned," explains Sivlal.
"We then gave the trees five months to recover naturally and did another assessment in January this year. It then became clear that the different species responded differently to the fire.
"Out of the 167 Caribbean pines at our Mapiep breeding archive we lost only five trees, while only eight of the 32 Patula pines survived. These trees were planted randomly, thereby excluding the factor that the fire burned more fiercely in certain parts of the orchard," he says.
Flowering surprise
The next challenge facing the team, namely to monitor budding and flowering, was also met with a pleasant surprise from Mother Nature this month.
"Usually most trees would use all their reserves to form new shoots after such a fire, but here we have several trees that have not only produced abundant regrowth, but also early buds," says Snedden.
This would have a significant impact on collaborative research projects with industry partners and clients such as ITC India. "Much of the project was to commence almost immediately. We thought we would have to delay it with at least a year, or source material from elsewhere. But with the Eucalyptus camaldalensis flowering again, we will have enough flowers to continue the project sooner than we initially thought," she says.
All in all, most partners were sympathetic to their loss, says Dr Steve Verryn, research group leader. "Everybody in the industry knew about the fires and some suffered big losses themselves. The Innovation Fund even offered assistance in providing parents for the recovery of a very rare and difficult cross series involving Eucalyptus smithii."
Even more good news
The CSIR has approved a R1.8 million budget to re-establish the Mapiep breeding archive and recover the research projects. At the same time a second CSIR orchard site will be developed as a risk management strategy against future fires.
So, while the tree improvement team has learned a hard lesson about the capriciousness of Mother Nature, they could, at the same time, enjoy her shade again.
Enquiries: CSIR Communication
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