Consellería de Medio Rural (Ministry of Rural Affairs) and Juana de Vega Foundation cooperate in a research project aimed at the genetic improvement of the Galician oak.

It involves, on the one hand, promoting the enhancement and improvement of the species and, on the other hand, promoting the use and harnessing of oak in our community through the increase of certified plants. Lourizán Forestry Research Centre, which depends on Rural Council, hosted the meeting to evaluate this common project entitled “Implementation of selected improved Quercus robur spaces in fields owned by the Galician Autonomous Community.

The initiative was embodied on a collaboration agreement between the Ministry and the Foundation on March 2015 and it is already bearing fruit. According to the experts gathered in Lourizán, the 18-month plant is developing the naked root. In addition, within the framework of the project, after the selection and collection of acorns in the selected areas of oak in Galicia, sowing was carried out in two collaborating tree nurseries: Viveros Costa de Lóngaras (Abadín, Lugo) and Centro Forestal Rías Baixas (Vilaboa, Pontevedra).

In the future, the research initiative will continue with the installation of several selected spaces of public ownership in 2018, which will constitute an authentic genetic reserve of oak in our geography. In fact, one of the objectives pursued is to maintain the diversity of Quercus robur in Galicia by creating plantations with greater variety and bringing together genetic materials from different geographical origins within the same climatic zone.

The improvement of the forest characteristics of the oak (growth, wood quality and resistance) and, in the future, encouraging the formation of plant material that allows planting these trees in private lands or in public interventions in urban and peri-urban parks and gardens are also pursued objectives.