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<DIV>new pitch for royal paulonia</DIV>
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<DIV>'Tree of the future'<BR>Myrtle Creek resident promotes special Empress
hardwood trees that can<BR>mature in eight years<BR>ADAM PEARSON,
apearson@newsreview.info<BR>November 30, 2005<BR><BR>MYRTLE CREEK - John Garbini
imagines a land, specifically Western Oregon,<BR>where hardwood trees mature in
eight years and self-sufficiently regrow from<BR>their stumps after
harvest.<BR><BR>In fact, he can almost see it now. Except the 2-month-old trees
on the back<BR>of his property are still the size of freshly planted
seedlings.<BR><BR>"This is what we call a real sustainable forest in our
lifetime," Garbini<BR>says, surveying the 500 Empress trees planted on 1.5 acres
of his land atop<BR>a ridge overlooking Interstate 5.<BR><BR>The Empress tree,
Garbini claims, is the tree of the future - a tree that<BR>can produce lumber at
an alarmingly fast rate, grow practically anywhere,<BR>and consume a ton of
carbon dioxide in its lifetime. Calling it "the lungs<BR>of the earth," he says
it "upstages every other tree."<BR><BR>He hopes it will eventually replace
Douglas fir in the Northwest and pine<BR>trees in the South and East Coast as
building material for the future.<BR><BR>By regrowing itself every eight years,
as many as seven times in its<BR>lifetime, Garbini says the Empress "can fill in
the gap of harvesting the<BR>fir trees."<BR><BR>But Garbini knows the Empress
has a long way to go before it becomes the<BR>staple tree of the timber
industry.<BR><BR>In order to advance it, Garbini wants to promote the Empress to
private<BR>property owners. He says farmers and ranchers can easily benefit from
its<BR>supplemental source of income by setting aside one acre of property for
a<BR>tree plantation.<BR><BR>In a few years, Garbini hopes to make an example by
pointing toward his<BR>plantation as proof.<BR><BR>Garbini claims the Empress
typically matures at about 18 inches in diameter<BR>after eight years of growth.
He says its current market value is $3 a board<BR>foot. With each tree on his
property expected to produce about 100 board<BR>feet, Garbini believes his
investment will grow into a $150,000 payoff on<BR>his 800-acre
ranch.<BR><BR>Though the trees' origins are rooted in China, Garbini acquired
his order of<BR>trees from a nursery in Scottsdale, Ariz. That's where
four-year-old company<BR>World Tree Technologies has altered the genetic makeup
of the Chinese<BR>Paulownia tree and ships its hybrid seedlings - or cloned
"startlings" - as<BR>Empress trees to interested buyers. The trees are
duplicated by cloning from<BR>a mother stock of tissue culture to produce a
uniformity of trees that share<BR>the same characteristics.<BR><BR>"The goal is
to move to a timber-based plantation to stop the destruction of<BR>old-growth
harvests," Wendy Burton, owner of World Tree Technologies, said<BR>of the
Empress.<BR><BR>But local foresters are wary to embrace a non-native tree in
Western<BR>Oregon's forests. They remember a hybrid tree from the 1980s, known
as KMX,<BR>that was pushed as revolutionary but ultimately lost its value within
the<BR>timber industry once it reached maturity.<BR><BR>A cross between
knob-cone pine and Monterey pine, KMX was not cold hardy<BR>enough and resulted
in rough quality.<BR><BR>Not that the KMX experience would prevent
experimentation with different<BR>trees.<BR><BR>Empress trees
glance<BR>According to World Tree Technologies, the Empress tree is a hybrid of
the<BR>Paulownia tree and is cloned for its light and durable wood.<BR>The
Empress can grow up to 20 feet tall its first year and up to five and 10<BR>feet
a year each successive year.<BR>The Empress can be harvested every seven to 10
years - two to four times<BR>faster than any other comparable tree, and it can
regenerate from its root<BR>structure as many as seven times.<BR>The Empress can
yield up to 30,000 board feet per acre every seven to 10<BR>years.<BR>The
Empress has four times the foliage area of the average tree and can<BR>consume
as much as four times the carbon dioxide. At the same time, it is<BR>said it can
produce as much as four times the oxygen of the average tree.<BR><BR>"I think
it's good for folks to try these things. But I think there needs to<BR>be more
research before we operate it on a large scale," Dan Newton,<BR>forester with
Roseburg Forest Products, said of experimenting with the<BR>Empress
tree.<BR><BR>Newton said the native species, Douglas fir, is adaptable and
extremely<BR>marketable for his company's current production.<BR><BR>Burton said
Empress lumber is already a popular item in Australia among<BR>sailboat builders
for its lightness and strength. She said it's also<BR>catching on in the United
States among cabinet builders and furniture<BR>makers.<BR><BR>She said there is
a strong demand for the trees' lumber, and her company has<BR>a database which
is backlogged with potential buyers for when the trees<BR>reach maturity. She
said that besides the plantations her company planted<BR>four years ago and the
trees it has sold, she knows of one other plantation<BR>of Empress trees in the
United States, which is located in Georgia.<BR><BR>"We get calls all the time
for, 'We need more Empress wood,'" Burton said.<BR><BR>Burton said the Empress
is 30 percent stronger than pine and 40 percent<BR>lighter than all other
hardwoods. And its large leaves consume more carbon<BR>dioxide than almost any
other deciduous tree as well.<BR><BR>"This wood is phenomenal," she
said.<BR><BR>Burton said 300 trees for an acre of property sell for $5,000. As
long as a<BR>buyer clears his land for a plantation of that size, World Tree
Technologies<BR>provides the planting, fertilization and irrigation of Empress
trees, she<BR>said.<BR><BR>She added that tree owners must be prepared to
maintain tree growth and<BR>durability by knocking off limbs from trunks as they
grow.<BR><BR>As far as introducing the Empress to Umpqua National Forest matrix
lands,<BR>where harvesting traditionally takes place, Umpqua Supervisor Jim
Caplan<BR>said it is not a possibility.<BR><BR>"As far as the Forest Service is
concerned, we plant only native species,"<BR>Caplan said.<BR><BR>But that
doesn't take away from Garbini's original goal: Introducing the<BR>Empress to
private property owners as a source of income and as a friend to<BR>the
environment.<BR><BR>"If we can capture CO2 and make a profit too, what the heck
is wrong with<BR>that?" Garbini asked.<BR><BR></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>