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USC tree scientist achieves breakthrough
A breakthrough by a University of the Sunshine Coast PhD student in the science of propagating tropical hardwood trees has great potential for both industry and the environment.
Cao Dinh Hung (first name Hung) is a 36-year-old Vietnamese student who enrolled at USC a few years ago because of its emerging reputation as Australia’s leading university for tropical forestry research.
“I want to complete my PhD on enhancing hardwood trees for use in plantations in Australia and Vietnam,” he said. “I want to assist in reducing deforestation while establishing and improving plantations in our countries.”
Hung has developed a new method of using synthetic seeds to grow native eucalypt and African mahogany trees, which are traditionally difficult to propagate from cuttings.
The process involves a small tree bud being inserted into a gel bead. After treatment in the laboratory, the bead grows new shoots and roots and can be propagated in nurseries.
USC Associate Professor in Plant Science Stephen Trueman said it was an easier and much quicker method of growing a stronger, selected tree.
“Normally from one seed we could produce 100 plants in a year,” Dr Trueman said. “This way we can produce about 10 million a year, with half the process in the lab and half in the nursery.
“It also means we can select the trees with the best wood quality for plantations and best carbon sequestration for the environment.”
Carbon sequestration is the rate at which trees absorb carbon from the air.
Dr Trueman, who collaborated with Hung on a paper published in the Australian Journal of Botany, said Hung was an outstanding researcher who spent most of his spare time in the campus laboratories.
The benefits may happen sooner rather than later. Hung this week sent a batch of the new synthetic seeds to nurseries to get them germinated so they can be grown in plantations for the construction industry.
Eucalypt plantations are found on the Sunshine Coast, in the South Burnett and in North Queensland while mahogany is grown in North Queensland and the Northern Territory for industry.
“Both are high-value timbers used in furniture or flooring,” said Hung, who is close to finalising his PhD.
Ongoing research is part of a collaboration between USC, the State Government, CSIRO and two plantation companies.
Australia has 900,000 hectares of eucalypt plantations and Vietnam has 600,000 hectares, putting them in the world’s top 10.
— Julie Gatehouse