Page 20 - Tree Line - North Carolina Forestry Association - Second Quarter 2024

Left to right: Hemlock seedlings at the NCFS Linville River Nursery in Crossnore. FRA Research Scholar Ben Smith works with volunteers. Hemlock Conservation Area on State Game Land.
Breeding for
Resistance
In 2007, forest entomologist and NC State professor Dr. Fred Hain created the Forest Restoration Alliance (FRA), a resistance screening and breeding program based in Waynesville. The nonprofit is working on creating a genetically improved hemlock. FRA Research Scholar Ben Smith has had promising results cross-breeding Carolina hemlock (Tsuga caroliniana) with Chinese hemlock (Tsuga chinensis), which produced hybrid offspring that reveal some HWA resistance traits. Smith is also looking for native eastern hemlocks that show promise as being potentially resistant to HWA and
he hopes to increase that potential through selective breeding. HRI has supported FRA by supplying volunteers for project workdays, funding capital improvements, and sharing their research objectives with the public. Smith says, “HRI has a much bigger outreach footprint than FRA, so they definitely help with the increase in awareness.”
FRA and HRI are also part of a new “Lingering Hemlock” project involving TreeSnap, an app used to record healthy native hemlock trees found in areas where many other hemlocks have died. These survivor trees may harbor a small amount of resistance to HWA and could be bred to strengthen that resistance.
Planting for
the Future
Four years ago, NCFS, with the help of HRI volunteers, began collecting seeds from hemlock trees throughout western North Carolina in order to perfect their propagation protocols. The goal was to
be prepared to provide seedlings in mass for future restoration plantings. Recently, NCFS has planted hemlock seed orchards on state forest land to supplement their annual seed collection and now grows thousands of eastern and Carolina hemlock seedlings a year at the Linville River Nursery in Crossnore. Once FRA
has bona fide resistant seedlings, Slye anticipates NCFS will be ready to grow those hemlocks within its nursery system.
Slye points out that “hemlocks are a keystone species in the state. We probably [have] 80% of the Carolina hemlocks in the world in North Carolina.” Slye believes that keeping hemlocks intact is also important for “the recreational and tourist industry in western North Carolina.” Through selective breeding, chemical treatments, growing hemlocks, and integrating biological control, FRA, HRI, NCFS, and BIL have one collective goal — the restoration and long- term survival of the eastern and Carolina hemlock in North Carolina.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Caroline Lord is the Outreach and Communications Manager at the Hemlock Restoration Initiative in Asheville, NC. She recently graduated from Clemson University with a Master’s in Resilient Urban Design. Before joining HRI, she worked as a freelance writer, editor, and public speaking coach.
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18 ncforestry.org / SECOND QUARTER 2024