Blog Entry #7

Week #7: February 25-March 3, 2013

Dear USDA,

What we know about the ecology of the eucalyptus tree is perennial, single-stemmed, large-boled, medium-sized to tall tree to 30 m high. It is common and widespread tree along watercourse mainland of Australia. So therefore it is NOT a native species to Florida. It does however like to grow around permanent or seasonal water areas. The benefits of this technology is simply this, allowing a “non-native” plant species to grow in more areas. But there is always concerns when you’re genetically modifying any plant. What is genetically modified tree spreads  it’s modified genes to other surrounding plants? The eucalyptus tree is extremely invasive and is known to spread far. Sometimes tampering with something can lead to other issues. Who is to say this won’t affect any other plants that ARE native to Florida. The only positive outlook on this is that the tree does in fact have oil that acts as an anti-inflammatory. This oil mainly is used in the medical field for chronic upper respiratory diseases (asthma) and colds: for such cases, it is used additionally as cough drops and also is applied in cosmetics and as massage oil. It also is used as a fast growing wood supply mainly for paper and cellulose industry. But do those few benefits weigh out the risks? Certainly ArborGen (a biotech company) seems to think so. But maybe we shouldn’t even risk it.

Best,

Jamie Hughes 

(Colloquium Student)