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“Better matching trees with new climates will improve the health and productivity of planted forests,” she said, adding the new approach using genomics and seedling trials will yield answers within a few years.

The strategy is a departure from traditional thinking, going back centuries, which held that the local populations of trees would be best adapted to their immediate environment. Based on that thinking, the seeds used to grow trees for reforestation would be gathered from local tree populations, grown and returned to the same area.

No more.

Trees in any specific region tend to be adapted to the historical climate of that region. But as climate changes, the comfort zones for tree populations are moving north or to higher elevations, forcing the trees to chase the cooler or wetter conditions they prefer, said Aitken.

But the comfort zones are changing much faster than tree populations can adapt.

“The fastest that a tree species can migrate is no more 100 to 200 metres per year,” she said. “Climate is moving several kilometres a year. My colleagues at the University of Calgary estimate that trees are lagging 130 kilometres behind their optimal climate already.”

The researchers hope to apply their findings to the planted forest, which provides hundreds of thousands of jobs and contributes $20 billion to Canada’s economy.

“We plant about 250 million trees a year in this province and that number is about to rise, so if we are going to all that trouble and expense, we should be trying to plant the right trees in the right places,” Aitken said.