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Deciding how to establish woodland in forest restoration is not straightforward as different outcomes may be obtained from different establishment approaches, each with cost implications and degree of success limitations attached. Planning restoration requires knowledge of site conditions, including how sites are likely to respond under climate change. For objectives of production and high timber quality it is likely that ground preparation will be used, and planting with forest reproductive material (FRM) of known traits, such as: high survival and growth in establishment, drought tolerance adequate for climate projections, good resistance to pests and pathogens. For objectives associated with biodiversity, carbon sequestration, water supply protection, soil protection, natural regeneration could be a less costly solution with a limited amount of assisted translocation of selected FRM to improve resilience. If objectives are for rewilding forest areas, a degree of natural colonisation perhaps with translocation of some FRM could be a solution. Ignoring site conditions and suitability of available sources of FRM for forest restoration is likely to provide unexpected results with a mix of open ground, scrub and scattered trees resulting from climate, herbivore, and browsing impacts. The recent B4EST EU Horizon 2020 project examined progress in novel rapid approaches for testing the quality of FRM from existing genetic trials. Here we review the work of B4EST to show the opportunities from transformative tree breeding in forest restoration schemes, including: new climate projection ensembles at high temporal and spatial resolution to develop norms of reaction and transfer models with genetic components; multi-environment genotype-phenotype associations and multi-locus genotype-environment associations in identifying drivers of local adaptation; techniques for genomic selection using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays to derive functional traits from polygenic associations; work on seed orchard site and climate specific FRM and zones for deployment; and work on some of the forest ecosystem service benefits derived at a landscape scale. We conclude that tree-breeding will provide robust forest restoration for planting, and rewilding (assisted natural regeneration), and if not “ignoring” but instead assisting natural colonisation processes – tree breeding may improve long-term forest resilience under environmental change.

Rice black bug is one of the most difficult pest to manage. Massive infestations of the rice black bugs were recorded across the world including the Philippines, devastating thousands of hectares of rice field and agricultural lands. In a local communal rice field in the Philippines, farmers are using light trap in adjacent rice fields to control infestation as alternative to pesticides. According to the farmers, having multiple traps in the rice field can help in having better rice black bug catch index. Researches suggests that multiple light traps should have proper distance from each other to avoid light interference for proper bug attraction. However, it is known in the studies that increases in light-trap catches have also been shown to be associated with changes in wind direction especially for weak flier insects including Rice Black Bug This study aims to develop a system with two (2) wirelessly networked portable light traps that can be deployed in a vast rice field area. Light traps communicate with each other by identifying the proper distance, and constantly checks the wind direction that will allow farmers to relocate the traps in the rice field for better catch. A mobile application was developed to monitor distance, wind direction, and black bug catch that notifies farmers of suggestions to properly locate or place the light trap in the rice field. Actual tests were performed in a communal rice field during on-set and off-set of full moon cycle. Results show better patterns of rice black bug catch when traps were place in proper distance and facing the right wind direction.

Primeval forests are today exceedingly rare in Europe and transfer of forest reproductive material for afforestation and improvement have been very common, especially over the last two centuries. This can be a serious impediment when inferring past population movements in response to past climate changes such as the last glacial maximum (LGM), some 18,000 years ago. In the present study, we genotyped 1,672 individuals from three Picea species (P. abies, P. obovata, and P. omorika) at 400K SNPs using exome capture to infer the past demographic history of Norway spruce and estimate the amount of recent introduction used to establish the Norway spruce breeding program in Southern Sweden. Most of these trees belong to P. abies and originate from the base population of the Swedish breeding program. Others originate from populations across the natural ranges of the three species. Of the 1,499 individuals stemming from the breeding program, a large proportion corresponds to recent introductions. The split of P. omorika occurred 23 million years ago (mya), while the divergence between P. obovata and P. abies began 17.6 mya. Demographic inferences retrieved the same main clusters within P. abies than previous studies, i.e. a vast northern domain ranging from Norway to central Russia, where the species is progressively replaced by Siberian spruce (P. obovata) and two smaller domains, an Alpine domain, and a Carpathian one, but also revealed further subdivision and gene flow among clusters. The three main domains divergence was ancient (15 mya) and all three went through a bottleneck corresponding to the LGM. Approximately 17% of P. abies Nordic domain migrated from P. obovata ~103K years ago, when both species had much larger effective population sizes. Our analysis of genome-wide polymorphism data thus revealed the complex demographic history of Picea genus in Western Europe and highlighted the importance of material transfer in Swedish breeding program

The polarization observables $T, E, P, H$, and $G$ in photoproduction of $��$ mesons off protons are measured for photon energies from threshold to $W=2400\,$MeV ($T$), 2280 MeV ($E$), 1620 MeV ($P, H$), or 1820 MeV ($G$), covering nearly the full solid angle. The data are compared to predictions from the SAID, MAID, J��Bo, and BnGa partial-wave analyses. A refit within the BnGa approach including further data yields precise branching ratios for the $N��$ decay of nucleon resonances. A $N��$-branching ratio of $0.33\pm 0.04$ for $N(1650)1/2^-$ is found, which reduces the large and controversially discussed $N��$-branching ratio difference of the two lowest mass $J^P=1/2^-$-resonances significantly., 10 pages, 11 figures