News from Koekelaere pine

The project to save the Koekelare Pine is making great strides. The graft harvesting campaign carried out by INBO in January 2019 on the trees in Hal's seed orchard prior to its total exploitation enabled the collection of the plant material needed to propagate the 50 genotypes present. The grafting and rearing of the seedlings was entrusted to a Dutch nursery.

At the end of the growing season, she was able to provide us with the results of her work. In total, 488 seedlings were produced, with a variable success rate between the different genotypes, but with a sufficient number of each to ensure the conservation of the orchard's initial genetic diversity.

The seedlings will be delivered in February 2020. The seedlings will be distributed between three sites: a conservation collection in the INBO nursery and two small new seed orchards in Wallonia (one in a public forest managed by the DNF forestry agency and the other in a private forest managed by the SRFB).