around the Southlands: hello, GE trees

A strip of Georgia bottomlands becomes the nation's first genetically engineered forest, plus more news

The bottomlands where the GE trees have been planted / Photo courtesy of Living Carbon

A month ago, in a strip of privately owned bottomlands in southern Georgia, workers for a Silicon Valley tech startup called Living Carbon hacked into the ground with mattocks and began planting high-tech saplings: poplar trees that have been genetically engineered to grow faster.

There are already genetically engineered fruit orchards in the U.S., and plenty of test plots where GE forest trees are growing. This is, as far as is publicly known, the first GE “forest” in the United States. The idea is that even if these trees are harvested, so long as the wood is used in construction, their sped-up growth means they soak up more carbon and could serve as a climate solution.

Until recently, most observers would have predicted that the first GE forest tree to be planted outside of a research setting would be a chestnut. Efforts have been underway since the 1980s to create a new version of this iconic species that will be resistant to a devastating blight. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been studying a GE chestnut tree since 2020 to determine if it can be deregulated. Late last year, the agency extended the public comment period. Living Carbon, by contrast, was founded less than four years ago.

I’m not particularly surprised that Georiga is the home to this groundbreaking forest; the South is, after all, an epicenter of timber production.