Towards the adoption of tissue-cultured planting stocks in forestry: Current initiative in the Philippines

Forestry nowadays, in the Philippines or elsewhere in the world, has taken a broader perspective, a bigger sphere that includes forest production, environmental restoration and biodiversity conservation. In the Philippines to date, much has yet to be desired in our efforts at environmental restoration, biodiversity conservation and forest production. The current technologies and initiatives available in the country are not adequate to supply the needs for quality planting materials of these activities. The development in the country of tissue culture protocols for industrial and indigenous tree species, initiated to address the pressing need for quality planting materials (Lapitan 1988,1999) and the need for steady supply of these stocks any planting time, promises a solution to this problem. The widely known gains achieved in other countries from the use of tissue-cultured materials have not been realized in the Philippines. The knowledge base, much more so the products of tissue culture of forest species: Acacia mangium, Gmelina arborea, Paraserianthes falcataria, Tectona grandis, Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Calamus filispadix, generated in previous work and study in the country, have not been utilized. There were also initiatives undertaken to develop tissue culture protocols for Philippine indigenous forest species that included Dipterocarpus grandiflorus, Shorea contorta, Anisoptera thurifera, Parashorea malaanonan, Pinus kesiya, Polyscias nodosa, Medinilla magnifica, Strongylodon macrobotrys, Calamus merilli, Melia dubia, Vitex parviflora, Tectona philippinensis and Dracontomelon dao. These professorial chair lecture endeavored to look at the whys and hows of things that would lead to the adoption of tissue-cultured materials in Philippine forestry. The importance of formal support from the government and other sectors, stakeholders, in the form of policy and legislation, technical assistance and advice; and resources to the smooth adoption of tissue culture need not be underscored. A strategy for the adoption of tissue culture has to be put in place. The strategy should focus on three major agenda which are to inform, to prove and to create the enabling condition, the environment that tissue culture of forest trees is the way to go to insure there will be improvement in our efforts at environmental restoration, biodiversity conservation and forest production. To inform no other powerful tool will move stakeholders to adopt the technology than seeing, experiencing it. An intelligently informed would-be end user would not be hard and hesitant to adopt tissue cultured planting stocks. To prove- a crucial step is to 'pilot test' the current protocols in the very sites where they are to be planted. This activity will also be an avenue for reshaping, refining the technology - an upgrading opportunity. The policy environment, the infrastructure, the basic genetic resources, the workforce, the laboratory supplies and materials, the mechanics of implementation and coordination among the tissue culturists, the distributors and the would-be end users are the components that should be built to create an enabling condition and environment for the adoption of tissue cultured planting stocks in forestry.