World population is increasing at an alarming rate and this has resulted in increasing tremendously the demand for tree products such as wood for construction materials, fuel and paper, fruits, oils and medicines etc. This has put immense pressure on the world’s supplies of trees and raw material to industry and will continue to do so as long as human population continues to grow. Also, the quality of human diet, especially nutritional components, is adversely affected due to limited genetic improvement of most of fruit trees. Thus there is an immediate need to increase productivity of trees. Improvement has been made through conventional breeding methods, however, conventional breeding is very slow due to long life cycle of trees. A basic strategy in tree improvement is to capture genetic gain through clonal propagation. Clonal propagation via organogenesis is being used for the production of selected elite individual trees. However, the methods are labour intensive, costly, and produce low volumes. Genetic gain can now be captured through somatic embryogenesis. Formation of embryos from somatic cells by a process resembling zygotic embryogenesis is one of the most important features of plants. In 1958, Reinert in Germany and Steward in USA independently reported somatic embryogenesis in carrot cultures. Since then, tremendous progress in somatic embryogenesis of woody and non-woody plants has taken place. It offers a potentially large-scale propagation system for superior clones.

Domestication. Perspectives on the evolutionary history of tree crops. The basis of selection, management and evaluation of multipurpose trees - an overview. Forest tree breeding and fruit tree breeding: strategies, achievements and constraints. Strategies for optimizing the yield of tree crops in suboptimal environments. Tree growth at cool temperaturea and prospects for improvement by breeding. The ideotype concept applied to forest trees. Definition and exploitation of forest tree ideotypes in Finland. The capacity for vegetative propagation in trees. The vegetative structure. Biometrical, structural and physiological relationships among tree parts. Dry matter partitioning in tree crops. Forest productivity in relation to carbon partitioning and nutrient cycling: a mathematical model. Prospects for manipulating vascular-cambium productivity and xylem-cell differentiation. Branching, crown structure and the control of timber production. Trees as producers of exudates and extractives. Trees as producers of fuel. Trees as fodder crops. Roots, symbionts and soils. Roots as a component of tree productivity. Improving tree crops using micro-organisms in designed systems. Trees as soil improvers in the humid tropics?. Exploiting tree crop-symbiont specificity. Flowering and fruiting. Promotion of flowering in the crops: different mechanisms and techniques, with special reference to conifers. Variability in flower initiation in forest trees. Reproduction behaviour of fruit tree crops and its implications for the manipulation of fruit set. Some attributes of nut-bearing trees of temperate forest origin. Trees in stands. Future fruit orchard design: economics and biology. Transpiration and assimilation of tree and agricultural crops: the 'omega factor'. The competition process in forest stands. Forest canopy design: biological models and management implications. Future forest design: economic aspects. Wood properties, and future requirements for wood products.

Eucalyptus, a genus of over 800 species, is a multiproduct crop par excellence. Not only is it grown for timber, pulp and fuelwood, but, as the Aborigines discovered thousands of years ago, it has numerous medicinal and aromatic properties. Since the first commercial distillation of eucalyptus oil 150 years ago, a vast array of eucalyptus-based pro

Provided here are both underlying theory and recent results concerning the propagation and use of clones in research and in production forestry. State-of-the-art science and case histories treating production, testing, multiplication and deployment of clones are presented. Agroforestry, urban forestry and christmas-tree farming are covered, along with more traditional multiple-use forestry and high-intensity forestry for biomass, wood and fiber production. Clonal forestry is contrasted to the more recent developments of "family forestry", and the classical tree-improvement approach relying on seed-orchards. The history of clonal forestry is covered with reviews of several centuries experience with Sugi in Japan and poplars in Europe. The impacts and use of clones in the contexts of genetic conservation and biodiversity are discussed, as are the laws and regulations affecting clonal production and deployment.