What research are we doing?

Hardwood tree research - Species

Our research at Paradise Wood is primarily focused on the production of high quality hardwood timber.   There are many hardwood tree species grown in Britain, but we have chosen five species to include in our tree breeding program:  

• Ash ~ Fraxinus excelsior L. Download the doctoral research paper 'Ash in a Changing Climate' by Jo Clark, Research Manager at the Earth Trust.   
• Beech ~ Fagus sylvatica  L.
• Cherry ~ Prunus avium  L.
• Oak ~ Quercus robur  L. & Q. petraea  (Matt.) Liebl.
• Walnut ~ Juglans regia  L., J. nigra  L. & their hybrids. 
Download the Walnut Stumping Guide (2012), produced by the Earth Trust in partnership with The National Forest Company.

These species were selected because of their commercial importance and their ability to grow well in mixtures and on a variety of sites.  Visit the species pages, via the links above, to learn more about our work with each species. 

Hardwood tree research - Types of trial

At Paradise Wood we have four main types of hardwood trials.

1. Provenance Trials: Those where trees originating from distinct geographic areas (provenance), such as a county or a country, are planted together in a trial. 
2. Progeny Trials:  Those where at least one parent of each planted trial tree (usually the female seed bearing tree) is known.  Trees of different progeny, but growing within a distinct geographic area, may be grouped together as a provenance. 
3. Breeding Seedling Orchard (BSO):  Trees are long-lived and it can take 10 to 30 years for a seedling, planted in a seed orchard, to flower and bear seed.  A BSO is a progeny trial combined with a seed orchard.  As the trial trees grow, analysis of the research data highlights the best and worst performing trees.  The worst trees are removed from the BSO (rogued) and the best trees remain to interbreed with each other and produce improved seed.  A BSO can considerably reduce the time taken to produce tested, marketable, seed.  
4. Silvicultural Trials:  The selection of the best site for a species, the spacing between the trees, and the control of weed growth around the young trees are just some of the important factors affecting tree growth. Much work has been done on the silviculture of hardwoods but much remains to be tried and tested.

Hardwood tree research - Partners and collaboration

We work in close co-operation with others, largely through the British & Irish Hardwoods Improvement Programme (BIHIP):  a consortium of forestry professionals, public bodies, landowners and forest scientists.  These include the Forest Research, COFORD (Eire) and the Department of Plant Sciences at Oxford University.

Tree breeding | Broadleaved trees | Species research