Root growth potential as an expression of seedling quality: towards successful tree domestication and plantation forestry in the Philippines

The Philippines has a long history of reforestation and tree plantation development for a long period of time already and extending to the present, the revegetation of our bare forest lands has been one of the pillars of the environment and natural resources development program of the Philippine government. Despite the huge efforts, time and financial resources that have been poured into the various government initiated reforestation projects, there are still vast areas of open and denuded forest lands in the country that need immediate revegetation. One of the causes of the failure of many reforestation projects in the Philippines in the past has been the inability to recognize seedling quality as a measure of field performance in forest. The paper dealt on the use of material attribute tests, particularly root growth potential (RGP), as a recently development in the assessment of the quality of planting stocks in forest nurseries. The intent of the paper was to provide a framework for a holistic assessment of planting stock quality assessment in the Philippines that integrates both morphological and physiological attributes (i.e. RGP) of the seedlings for successful tree domestication, reforestation and industrial tree plantations in the Philippines. This paper was a result of a survey of the past and existing planting stock quality assessment in a number of forest nurseries across the country. Furthermore, the paper also contains the results of a study on the lateral root growth of large leaf mahogany and its influence of the quality of the seedlings of the species, done by the professorial chair holder. In addition, the results of root growth studies of other tropical tree species which was recently investigated by graduate students under his supervision were also presented. Results from these studies were synthesized and analyzed and the knowledge generated was used in making recommendations that can guide forest nursery operations in the Philippines towards the production of superior planting stock that integrates both morphological and physiological attributes. Specifically, the synthesis provided insights on appropriate nursery seedling cultural treatments that will produce target seedlings of the species planted. This, in turn, was linked to successful reforestation and plantation establishment, and eventually, the domestication of important tree species in the country.