Abstract: The basic concepts and progress of four aspects of biotechnology, namely, gene engineering, cellular biotechnology, enzymatic and fermentable biotechnology and their application in forest trees were reviewed. For the past several years, there have been many reports on transgenic woody plants. Plant and cell culture, protoplast culture and cell fusion and other cellular biotechnology plus gene recombination methods have shown their great potential in tree hardness and pest and disease resistance breeding, rapid propagation for plantation and germ plasm preservation of rare species. Enzymatic and fermentable biotechnology provides alternatives in developing forest products.