The cloned and genetically modified Christmas tree is here, thanks in part to work done in Rotorua. In a greenhouse in Copenhagen, Danish scientists are nursing 1500 GM fir seedlings.
If this test being carried out at Copenhagen's Botanical Gardens goes well, the "perfect Christmas tree" could be on sale in
British shops in five years.
The breakthrough is the work of a Danish team, led by Dr Jens Find, who studied at the Forest Research Institute in Rotorua last year.
Dr Find has been working on tree-cloning techniques for about 10 years. But New Zealanders developed the skills of creating "transgenic" modified trees.
The chosen tree is the 2m Nordmann Fir, which grows in the Caucasus but also flourishes in Denmark.
Dr Find, who spent a year in New Zealand, first cloned the fir to produce a series of precisely similar young trees with identical shape and growth.
Then he produced a transgenic tissue culture (with a gene from another species introduced) to bring about genetic modification.
"It doesn't have practical use - it's just to show it can be done."
GM engineering will render the fir insect-resistant, making the present high use of pesticides unnecessary. Further research may produce a Christmas tree resistant to frost whose needles do not drop off.
With a combination of cloning and genetic modification, the Danes hope to halve the time needed to grow them.
Exporting Christmas trees is big business in Denmark. Every autumn several million are sold to Germany, France and Britain.
Asked if he expected any hostility from anti-GM campaigners, Dr Find said: "So far, no negative reaction. It's not as if anyone ate Christmas trees."
In Rotorua, the Forest Research Institute's manager of future forests, Tom Richardson, was surprised yesterday to hear of the development.
He said Dr Find came to New Zealand on an exchange trip to study our genetic engineering and transformation techniques.
Any practical application to produce a Christmas tree which did not shed its needles was likely to be years away, if at all.
"He can't be very far down the track," Mr Richardson said.
There were no New Zealand projects under way - nor were there likely to be - to clone Christmas trees which retained their needles.
- NZPA
