World's Oldest Tree To Be Cloned

Pirogoeth writes "Scientists have taken seedlings from the world's oldest tree, a 4,768-year-old bristlecone pine named Methuselah, and plan on plan on altering them to make them clones of the ancient tree. Their goal is to study them to find the secret of their longevity and to see if cloned trees can survive in different climates."

Comments

As if cloning a plant is any kind of breakthrough

[Anonymous Coward]

Memo to all y'all city folk out there in /. land: People have been cloning plants since time immemorial.

You cut off a little piece of the branch, plop it in some potting soil, keep it wet, and in a coupla months, la voila: It's sprouted a root system!!!

Just about 100% of all commercial plant offerings are clones [possibly grafted onto a foreign root system, which is itself likely a clone].

Austin (TX) Treaty Oak

[RobertB-DC]

In 1989, a vandal used a strong poison and nearly killed the Treaty Oak, a 500-year-old Live Oak said to be the place where Stephen F. Austin signed a treaty with the local Native American tribes. Heroic efforts (funded by H. Ross Perot) went into saving the tree, but nobody knew if they would be successful.

To preserve the tree's legacy, it was "cloned" -- several still-living branches were rooted just as the parent poster described. One of these trees is now growing next to the original. It's clearly an exact genetic duplicate, and if that's not a clone, I don't now what is.

I agree with the parent poster -- what's the big deal? Why can't they just cut off a branch of the Methuselah tree and root it?

By the way, the story of the Treaty Oak has a happy ending. Despite fears that it would only be good for commemorative pen sets, the tree made a comeback, and started bearing acorns again in 1997 -- 8 years after the attack. Seedlings are now available, for "just" $125 bucks.

The poisoner, on the other hand, likely had a bit rougher time -- 9 years in a Texas state prison. No word on the fate of his acorns...