The first industrial curly birch crop will be planted in Karelia in the fall.

— The planting stock was prepared by staff of the KarRC RAS Woody Seedling Experimental and Production Department - a separate scientific and production facility designed to develop the technology for industrial-scale curly birch breeding and to create conditions for replication of seedlings of this woody crop. Several things made the establishment of an industrial plantation of curly birch possible. A unique collection of in vitro clones of rare birch species has been created at the Karelian Research Center RAS, the bulk of which (32 genotypes) is curly birch. It is carefully maintained by staff of the Forest Research Institute. Genetic material from this collection is used to create curly birch seedlings for industrial cultivation. Clonal micropropagation, which KarRC RAS scientists have been practicing since the 1990s, is the most efficient technique for producing seedlings of this tree crop which guarantees the preservation of unique traits of the source trees, — told Olga Bakhmet, KarRC RAS Acting Director General.

Проводить такие работы в большом объеме позволит современное оборудование для клонирования и выращивания саженцев, закупленное Карельским научным центром РАН.

The plantation will be created under the three-party cooperation agreement between the Karelian Research Center RAS, the Ministry of Natural Resources of Karelia and Segezha Group PJSC.