New Zealand’s world status as the leader in pine tree cloning could be threatened if scientists can’t solve a problem with some of the ’super trees’ grown in Whakatane. Horizon2, a forestry biotechnology company in the Bay of Plenty, has gone global in its efforts to find out why some of the mother plants from one of its elite pine tree breeding programmes are mysteriously failing. An expert on somatic embryogenesis - the process used to clone the trees - flew in from Ireland to assist the company. Dr David Thompson, will try to work out why some of the mother plants are turning yellow and then becoming so weak that they snap off at ground level.