ArborGen visit

Our next trip was to the Arborgen facility in Summerville. We spoke to Maud Hinchee and her colleagues who genetically engineer trees. ArborGen engineers trees so that they can withstand changes in climate and disease. ArborGen's trees can help reduce the loss of lumber trees, which helps the economy. The process takes 14 years, and consists of researching the tree's genome, inserting the new gene, culturing the tree's tissues, testing the tree, and marketing the trees. A pine tree has 25 billion bases to its genome. Humans, for example, have only 8 billion bases. The scientists at ArborGen think they will be able to make a tree that is more resistant to the Southern Pine Beetle, such as trees that smell less like oleoresin, which is what attracts the beetles.
Maud's colleagues showed us some of the plants that they are in the process of genetically engineering. Each plant had its own canister with a jell that helped it grow. This jell had all the nutrients that a plant needs. They have plants that show different stages of development as well.

Our trip to ArborGen helped us a lot, and gave us another person that we could talk to: Joerg Bohlmann at the University of British Columbia.