Tree Cloning

In New York on January 11th, city officials chose 25 long-living and "historical" trees to clone. This was for a plan called "Million Trees NYC," which was announced last year. The point of the program is to add a million trees to public spaces over the next decade. Cloning has two stages. First, the cuttings are grafted into roots. Then new growth is later peeled away to make a sapling with the DNA of the original tree. The result is a genetically identical tree. Students who studied agriculture in a nearby high school snipped off sections of new growth, and sent them to a scientific tree nursery in Oregon. If this plan succeeds, the clones of the trees will return to New York in about two years to be replanted. Each cutting will produce ten copies! The trees, including nine species, were chosen for lasting at least a century. One of the oldest trees, called the St. Nicholas elm, is supposedly a tree George Washington had walked under 230 years ago during The Revolutionary War.

Wow! I think this is a great idea because we're cutting down way too many trees, and this will replace them. Trees are important in many ways, and I think this will help. For more information please go to http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080111/ap_on_sc/cloning_trees;_ylt=AnecSRStja2HK12kAmGLkw4PLBIF