UPM Forestal Oriental - Social and Enviromental Report 2014

Micropropagation Laboratory (ML)

The ML has two main objectives. Firstly, it seeks to reduce the time required to obtain mother plants from new clones and thus begin their operational production in the shortest possible time. Secondly, it aims to physiologically rejuvenate the mother plants to increase the rooting percentage of the cuttings that they produce. By starting the pre-multiplication process for the most promising clones in the lab early, we have reached a point where the mother plants of all new clones incorporated operationally come from the same source.

In 2014, more than 27 million plants of different species of Eucalyptus were shipped, primarily from the species E. grandis and E. dunnii. San Francisco Nursery Production area 50,575 m2 Personnel involved: 135 people Quantity of plants shipped: 19.1 million seedlings, (E. grandis, E. dun- nii). Santana Nursery Production area: 55,050 M2 Personnel involved: 120 people. Quantity of plants shipped: 7.8 million seedlings of E. dunnii.

The achievements made through our Genetic Improvement Programme have been significant. This has been key to the increase in terms of cellulose per hectare, which has almost doubled since we started our programme almost 25 years ago.

RICARDO METHOL Technical Development and PlanningManager

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