Decked out in baubles, tinsel and sparkling lights, New Year trees adorn the streets of Moscow year after year. And while most people seem happy with them, specialists say the pitch of perfection is yet to be reached.

Specialists at a fir-tree plantation in Central Russia say the perfect crop of New Year trees is something that’s yet to be produced. But the main aim of the process that started in the 1980s is to protect the gene pool by reproductive cloning, according to Samara Forestry Department chief engineer, Dmitry Malyshev.

“This plantation was founded to preserve the heredity of select trees. We look for plants that are the most productive, which are bigger, taller, more resistant to environmental factors and which have a better trunk,” he says.

Such trees are then cloned with the help of one of two methods. The first one is taking cuttings when a parent tree is selected, then a ‘branch’ is cut and grafted or firmly attached to some existing roots. If it takes root, the grafted plant is then grown in a greenhouse for a year.

The other method starts in a small laboratory, where seeds from selected trees are dried, sorted and then planted. If successful, the seed will sprout a root and a stem.

Like the trees cloned by the first method, little seedlings are also moved to a greenhouse to develop.

The whole process can be very labour-intensive.

“It takes a tree a long time to grow, then it has to be checked: how tall it is, if it is straight enough, how the trunk is developing. Basically it has to match all the characteristics that are considered to be the best,” says scientist Olga Savelieva.

Eventually both types of trees are moved to the plantation, and young potential New Year trees grow next to their older brothers and sisters.