PROFILE

FORESTRY RES AG–The Forestry Commission Research Agency (‘Forest Research’) is the UK’s primary research organisation for forests, woodlands and trees and is an internationally recognised centre of excellence for forestry research, technical development and associated advice. Our overall focus is on applied research and analysis of the biological, ecological and economic aspects of sustainable management of trees and forests. As well as being of international relevance our work underpins a range of policies, including the UK and EU Plant Health Policy in relation to tree health. Forest Research currently employs 185 staff, at two main sites (England and Scotland) supported by a network of field stations.

ROLE IN THE PROJECT

FORESTRY RES AG will coordinate the sub-section of the POnTE project on forestry and will be the lead partner for WP1. As P8 we will perform surveys and will monitor the presence of Phytophthora spp. and Hymenoscyphus fraxineus in the forest and in the wider environment. Special effort will be made to identify potential Phytophthora hybrids and new Phytophthora threats. Our aim is to improve the bioinformatics pipelines when using NGS-Illumina and to develop protocols to resolve some of the Phytophthora clades where the species are difficult to discriminate. We will assess hot water treatment as a potential method of providing ash seeds free of H. fraxineus. In addition we will monitor and analyzing the data from a mass screening trial to identify inherent resistance in UK ash trees to H. fraxineus.

FORESTRY RES AG will be involved in the following work packages: WP1, WP2, WP3, WP4, W8, WP9, WP10, WP11

STAFF

• FORSTER JACK
• GREEN SARAH
• HENRICOT BEATRICE
• MCCARTAN SHELAGH
• NEEDHAM ROBERT
• PARRATT MATTHEW
• PEREZ-SIERRA ANA
• WEBBER JOAN