KEITH W. DORMAN

Principal Silviculturist
Southeastern Forest Experiment Station

Keith Dorman, sometimes called the Luther Burbank of forestry, pioneered the genetic improvement of southern pines. Because of his work, which spanned 40 years, southern foresters have planted millions of acres of superior pines that grow faster, produce more wood, and are more resistance to disease than average trees.

Dorman’s interest in genetics came early in life. Born on a farm outside Perry, IA, on February 9, 1910, he lived in an environment where discussions often centered around varieties of corn or breeds of livestock. During college, he spent two summers working on national forests in Idaho, and in 1934, he earned a B.S. in forestry from Iowa State University.

Dorman’s professional career with the Forest Service began on the Ottawa National Forest, where he served as Civilian Conservation Corps foreman and assistant ranger for both the Iron River and the Ontonagon Ranger Districts. In l936, he began graduate studies in watershed forest influences at the University of California at Berkeley. When his education was interrupted by a combination of poor health and a young family to support on a student’s budget, he returned to the Ottawa briefly, then transferred to the Southern Forest Experiment Station to study flood control on the White River as affected by various land use patterns.

During the Second World War Dorman transferred to the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station research unit in Lake City, FL, where "nearly every tree had a cat face," the V-notch that characterized gum producing pines. Spurred by high demand for naval stores during the war, Dorman embarked on a program of genetics research that was to continue for the next 30 years. "A basic task for any plant improvement program is the locating or selection of superior plants for breeding stock--those individuals which occur rarely throughout large numbers of their kind. Once found, they may be used as parents in controlled breeding or as a source of material for rooting or grafting. The new plants, either from cuttings or from grafted stock, will possess all the characteristics of the original."

Working with two physiologists, Dorman found a dozen trees that produced twice the gum as others and began breeding them. Within five years, groups of offspring from his selections grew twice as fast and produced twice the average gum yield, with individual trees producing four to five times the average.

These successes prompted Dorman to become interested in selecting for other qualities: "We need to learn of trees which grow more rapidly than others, which have good form and produce high quality wood products or possess other desirable characteristics." After a 1949 visit to State forest research facilities in Griffin, GA, Dorman was invited to lead a cooperative genetics project with the Ida Cason Callaway Foundation in Hamilton, GA. With an experimental site, staffing, and travel expenses provided by the Foundation, Dorman selected seeds from loblolly, longleaf, slash, and shortleaf pines, and began a creative breeding program that was the first to show inherent variations in growth, limb formation, specific gravity, and resistance to diseases such as fusiform rust. This work laid the foundation for the establishment of seed orchards throughout the South.

In 1953, Dorman became project leader of the Southeastern Station’s research unit in Macon, GA. In addition to his genetics work, he was responsible for coordinating all forest research in Georgia, and serving as the Station’s representative for the Committee on Southern Forestry Improvement, which had been established to stimulate research and publication of results among Federal, State, and academic scientists.

In 1958, Dorman transferred to Station headquarters in Asheville, NC, where he was responsible for research on genetics and naval stores until his retirement. During that time, he was elected a Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and received a USDA Superior Service Award for his pioneering work in southern forest tree improvement. He is the author of more than 80 publications, including "The Genetics and Breeding of Southern Pines," which is used as a text and reference book all over the world.

Dorman retired from the Forest Service in 1976 but did not stop working. Five years later, the Chinese Academy of Forestry invited him to lead a series of surveys, seminars, and practical training sessions that took him to some of the most remote areas of Southern China. In the course of his two months’ stay, Dorman delivered 18 lectures on silviculture to professors, heads of public forests, researchers, and students from a variety of provinces. He also provided guidance on breeding Southern pines to expand the Chinese tree planting program beyond the few native species that had proved to be slow growing and ill-formed.

In 1989, Dorman was elected a Fellow by the Society of American Foresters for his contributions to the application of forestry, education, research, and the advancement of professional forestry. He says that his main accomplishment has been to lay the groundwork for creative breeding of southern pines. Because of his work, all industrial forestland owners now have breeding strategies and nurseries, and every southern State now has a tree improvement program.

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