Research On Wood Formation Sheds Light On Plant Biology

ScienceDaily.com has a story about how scientists at North Carolina State University have discovered a phenomenon never seen before in plants while studying molecular changes inside tree cells as wood is formed. Read the full article here.

Research On Wood Formation Sheds Light On Plant Biology

By: ScienceDaily.com

In research published online inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Aug. 20, the team found that one member of a family of proteins called transcription factors took control of a cascade of genes involved in forming wood, which includes a substance called lignin that binds fibers together and gives wood its strength.

The controller protein regulated gene expression on multiple levels, preventing abnormal or stunted plant growth. And it did so in a novel way.

The controller, a spliced variant of the SND1 family, was found in the cytoplasm outside the cell nucleus. This is abnormal, because transcription factor proteins are always in the nucleus. But when one of the four other proteins in its family group was present, the spliced variant was carried into the nucleus, where it bound to the family member, creating a new type of molecule that suppressed the expression of a cascade of genes.

“This is nothing that’s been observed before in plants,” says Dr. Vincent Chiang, co-director of NC State’s Forest Biotechnology Group with Dr. Ron Sederoff. Chiang’s research team was the first to produce a transgenic tree with reduced lignin. High lignin levels are desirable for lumber, but lignin is removed during the process of making paper or manufacturing biofuels.

Sequoya. Scientists at North Carolina State University have discovered a phenomenon never seen before in plants while studying molecular changes inside tree cells as wood is formed. (Credit: © Galyna Andrushko / Fotolia)

Monster Tree Service featured in Philadelphia Business Journal

Monster Tree Service was recently featured in the Philadelphia Business Journal in an article titled, "Trees need chopping and pruning so he created a Monster." The article discusses how Josh Skolnick got involved in the tree maintenance industry, founding a multi-millionaire dollar company, Monster Tree Service. Josh discussed the immediate success he saw with the company and why he decided to offer franchise opportunities. The article discusses the process for getting involved in franchising with Monster Tree Service, and why now is such a good time to be involved in the franchising industry.  Click here to read the entire article or begin below.

Trees need chopping and pruning so he created a Monster
By: John George

FORT WASHINGTON — Don’t tell Josh Skolnick money doesn’t grow on trees.

The 28-year-old entrepreneur’s business, Monster Tree Service, has grown into a multimillion-dollar enterprise providing tree-maintenance services to thousands of Philadelphia-area customers.

Now, Skolnick is offering Monster Tree Service franchises.

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What Is a Tree Worth?

The Wilson Quarterly highlights how trees brighten city streets and delight nature-starved urbanites in the article, What is a Tree Worth. You can read the full article here.

What Is a Tree Worth?

By: Jill Jonnes

On April 8, 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt, attired in a dark suit and top hat, could be found in Fort Worth, Texas, where youngsters looked on from a nearby window as he shoveled soil over the roots of a sapling. It was Arbor Day, which schools across the nation had recently begun commemorating, and the ever vigorous president was demonstrating his hands-on love of trees. For Roosevelt, Arbor Day was no publicity stunt. In an address to America’s schoolchildren a couple of years later, he celebrated “the importance of trees to us as a Nation, of what they yield in adornment, comfort, and useful products.” He saw trees as vital to the country’s well-being: “A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as hopeless.”

For centuries, tree lovers mighty and humble have planted and nurtured trees—elms, oaks, ginkgoes, magnolias, apples, and spruces (to name but a handful of America’s 600-some species). “I never before knew the full value of trees,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1793. “Under them I breakfast, dine, write, read, and receive my company. What would I not give that the trees planted nearest the house at Monticello were full grown.” But trees were often taken for granted in a new nation that seemed to have a limitless supply.

Then along came Julius Sterling Morton, a nature lover who moved to Nebraska in the 1850s, briefly edited the state’s first newspaper, and soon entered politics. He conceived of an annual day of tree planting, inaugurating a tradition that was rapidly adopted around the country and then the world. (Today, Arbor Day is observed nationwide on the last Friday in April, though individual states mark it on other days.) In 1874, when Nebraska proclaimed Arbor Day an official holiday, The Nebraska City News rhapsodized about trees: “The birds will sing to you from their branches, and their thick foliage will protect you from the dust [and] heat.”

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Monster Tree Service in Smart CEO’s Start-Up Magazine

CEO and Founder of Monster Tree Service, Josh Skolnick, has been featured in Smart CEO’s Start-Up issue. The article discussed Josh’s background owning a lawn care service and the evolution that led to eventually founding Monster Tree. After putting together the tree service side of his business pretty much piece by piece, Josh was able to sell residential services and took the right advice from people who really knew the industry to get the business going. In the first year in business, Monster Tree built a million dollar business with just residential tree care. One of the smartest decisions that Josh made was to focus on building the business opportunity, not just focus on working in the business. Read the article here.

Start Me Up
By: Lindsay Eney

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Which Trees Offset Global Warming Best?

About.com features an article by Earth Talk about how some trees are better than others at absorbing carbon dioxide. You can read the full article here.

Dear EarthTalk: Which trees are best to plant to help combat global warming?
By: Tim C., Perrineville, NJ

Trees are important tools in the fight to stave off global warming, because they absorb and store the key greenhouse gas emitted by our cars and power plants, carbon dioxide (CO2), before it has a chance to reach the upper atmosphere where it can help trap heat around the Earth’s surface.

All Plants Absorb Carbon Dioxide, but Trees are Best while all living plant matter absorbs CO2 as part of photosynthesis, trees process significantly more than smaller plants due to their large size and extensive root structures. In essence, trees, as kings of the plant world, have much more “woody biomass” to store CO2 than smaller plants, and as a result are considered nature’s most efficient “carbon sinks.”

According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), tree species that grow quickly and live long are ideal carbon sinks. Unfortunately, these two attributes are usually mutually exclusive. Given the choice, foresters interested in maximizing the absorption and storage of CO2 (known as “carbon sequestration”) usually favor younger trees that grow more quickly than their older cohorts. However, slower growing trees can store much more carbon over their significantly longer lives.

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How a Tree Grows - All About Tree Growth

How Much of A Tree is Actually Alive? Learn more in this article featured on About.com, part of the New York Times Company. 

How a Tree Grows - All About Tree Growth

By: Steve Nix

Very little of a tree's volume is actually "living" tissue. Just 1% of a tree is actually alive and composed of living cells. The major living portion of a growing tree is a thin film of cells just under the bark (called the cambium) and can be only one to several cells thick. Other living cells are in root tips, the apical meristem, leaves and buds.

The overwhelming portion of all trees is made up of non-living tissue created by a cambial hardening into non-living wood cells on the inner cambial layer. Sandwiched between the outer cambial layer and the bark is an ongoing process of creating sieve tubes which transport food from leaves to roots.

So, all wood is formed by the inner cambium and all food-conveying cells are formed by the outer cambium.

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