The cork oak is of great ecological and economic importance for the society. With nearly 700,000 ha of forest, the average production of cork is 70,000 tons per year, a quarter of world production. As for the cork industry, it employs nearly 100,000 people. These forests are also home to endangered species such as Spanish Imperial Eagle, Iberian lynx and the Barbary deer. The forests of cork oak are currently threatened by overgrazing: pigs and rodents eat the acorns and the cows and sheep, buds. Knowing that more than 10 years in the cork oak, reaching sexual maturity and between 30 and 40 years to

operate its cork, regeneration of these trees is therefore difficult. A Spanish research team seems to have found a solution to the restocking of forests cork oak, producing by somatic embryogenesis (tissue culture in vitro), a clone of genetically identical embryos of cork oak. The embryos were encapsulated in alginate shell (a substance after a seaweed), which protects it from drying out and can keep longer and use it as a seed. Hence the name "artificial seeds". In the future, with this method, we can select trees with desirable traits such as high production of acorns or resistance to certain diseases or adverse conditions. The best seed quality and yield, will have a economic interest, but also environmental restocking forests.