Welcome back. My name is Andy, and you're listening to the Poor Proz Almanac.

Following up on our discussion around black walnuts and native

tree crops the past few weeks, we're joined by the director of the University of Tennessee's

Tree Improvement Program, Dr. Scott Schlarbaum. Most people listening are probably surprised that

any university offers a tree improvement program, and they'd even be more surprised to know that the

program isn't designed specifically

with future cash crops in mind, but rather protecting eco-type genetic diversity and developing

the foundation for potential tree crops, such as acorns, black walnuts, butternuts, and more.

Scott's a wealth of information, and I really enjoyed our our talk and I'm sure you will too.

For more information about the University of Tennessee's Tree Improvement Program,

check out the show's notes and if you enjoy the episode, give us a review on iTunes.

Scott, thanks so much for joining us. Tell us a little bit about this program at the University

of Tennessee that is really interesting. I think I'd love to see it kind of expanded at other

schools. So tell us a little bit about it. The University of Tennessee's tree improvement program

started back in 1959. And in that era, in the 50s and then early 60s, there were a number of tree improvement programs across the nation.

The goal is this is forest tree, not horticultural tree or necessarily landscape tree.

At the time, there was, of course, more money available from not only federal government, but also

from state governments. And they started to show that you could actually genetically improve

pines. And before that, some poplars and things like that. And as, of course, our population grew, the demand increased. So in the 1950s,

industrial cooperatives, university slash industry cooperatives were formed using the expertise

in breeding, testing, and things like that at the universities to start tree, basically tree improvement

programs and companies.

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