Tissue Culture Propagation and Dispatch of Quality Teak Clones

The Plant Biotechnology Laboratory, operating under the Biotechnology and Horticulture Division, Sabah Foundation Group, was set up in the early 1990s as part of the plant improvement program jointly undertaken by ICSB and CIRAD-Foret, a French R & D organization. Special efforts have been devoted to vegetative propagation strategies based on the development of efficient techniques at both the laboratory and nursery levels. The primary species of interest is on teak, the most valuable timber species in the world today and as such, very much sought after. The determining strategy was to develop efficient nursery and in vitro techniques for clonally mass-propagating true-to-type "Plus" trees, the selection of which is constantly upgraded from genetically highly diverse base populations. With the possibility to overcome the constraints of phytosanitary certification, tissue-culture issued clonal materials have been successfully dispatched to various oversea destina - tions. Data collected to date have shown that our selected Solomon Island teak origins are adaptable to a wide range of environ- mental conditions, demonstrating their superiority with respect to traits of major economical value over seed-issued plants from local origins. Our selected plant materials are also characterized by DNA markers and wood analyses for enhanced quality and property right control, these being taken into consideration in the early stage of the selection process.