14 DAY TRIAL // Because of their impressive size, several tree species have been all but wiped off the face of our planet by the timber industry.
A group of conservationists now hope that they might succeed in regrowing the world's magnificent, ancient forests by cloning giant trees and planting their “offspring” in various parts of the world.
The species first targeted by the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive are California's redwood tree and the sequoia tree, Daily Mail says.
For Earth Day (April 22), almost twenty redwood tree clones were sent to Germany, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and in the United States - California and Oregon, where they are to be planted and allowed to grow.
“This Earth Day, Archangel will release into the world its collection of clones from the greatest coast redwood trees that have ever lived in an historic first ever global planting of champion coast redwoods to begin to rebuild healthy forests,” the group wrote on their official website.
Presently, these lab-grown trees only measure about 18 inches in height.
However, it is expected that the trees will eventually grow to impressive sizes and thus help offset the effects of climate change and global warming.
“This is a first step toward mass production . We need to reforest the planet; it's imperative. To do that, it just makes sense to use the largest, oldest, most iconic trees that ever lived,” argued David Milarch, one of the co-founders of Archangel Ancient Tree Archive.
“If we get enough of these trees out there, we'll make a difference,” said Jared Milarch, the organization's executive director.
The same source informs us that the method used by these greenheads in order to create these tree clones is known as vegetative propagation.
The method comes down to the researcher's using one single parent plant in order to roll out several other genetically identical plants.
Unlike traditional methods of breeding trees, vegetative propagation helps ensure that only so-called champion trees are used to grow back ancient forests.