Bottle babies: How tissue culture helps in beech research

It is hardly surprising that people first think of forests in terms of sunshine, fresh air and the scent of resin and moss. But there is another kind of forest that probably no one thinks of spontaneously: in the laboratories of forestry research institutes. Here, the trees do not stretch out toward the sun, but toward artificial LED lighting. Nor do they take root in humus, but in jelly-like nutrient medium. Above all, they do not rise dozens of meters above the ground, but are content with just a few centimeters in a glass bottle.

At first glance, these plants have little in common with their wild relatives. And yet they are a treasure for research, economic use and even for the protection and preservation of trees. With tissue culture, species threatened with extinction can be artificially preserved, similar to a seed bank, and later replanted in nature. Likewise, plants with particularly valuable characteristics can be preserved, propagated, and planted in the forest as needed. In this way, for example, sycamores with particularly beautiful wood grain are selectively propagated and planted. But tissue culture is also an important tool for scientific research on forest trees because it enables experiments to be carried out with precisely known plants. This enables scientists to gain very precise insights into the response of plants, for example, to pathogens or different environmental conditions.

But although European beech is the most important deciduous tree species in Germany, it is most conspicuous by its absence when walking through a collection of forest trees in tissue culture. This is because it is very difficult to be propagated in the laboratory. As a result, research lacks an important resource to study, for example, the species' defense mechanisms against herbivores and pathogens, as well as its resistance to environmental conditions.