Mar 21, 2014 10:48 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Scientists have successfully sequenced the largest genome ever attempted, a loblolly pine that has 23 billion base pairs.

According to NBC News, that figure is seven times the base pairs in a human body. The scientists said sequencing the loblolly pine's genome could help them figure out ways to extend its lifespan considerably.

The loblolly pine is a valuable and plentiful source for timber and paper products, so keeping each tree alive longer will help them become more efficient in producing these products.

The researchers published their work in the journal Genetics. If the scientists had sequenced the tree's genome they same way they would a human's, they would have been working for years.

"It's a huge genome. But the challenge isn't just collecting all the sequence data. The problem is assembling that sequence into order," study lead author David Neale, a professor of plant sciences at the University of California - Davis, said in a press release. "The size of the pieces of consecutive sequence that we assembled are orders of magnitude larger than what's been previously published."

To sequence this massive genome in a timely manner, the researchers used a method that shortened the process 100 times over. By compressing the raw sequence data, the scientists were able to piece together the computational puzzle known as genome assembly much more swiftly.

"We were able to assemble the human genome, but that was close to the limit of our ability; seven times bigger was just too much," study co-author Steven Salzberg, professor of medicine and biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University, said in the release.

Dana Nelson, project leader at the Forest Service Southern Institute for Forest Genetics, said genetic resistance is a leading cause of disease in southern pines. The most damaging of which is genetic resistance to fusiform rust.

"The fusiform rust mapping that our scientists did as part of this project provides significant information for land managers, since more than 500 million loblolly pine seedlings with these resistance genes are planted every year," Nelson said in the release. "The group selected loblolly pine for sequencing because of the relatively long history of genetic research from the institute and others on the loblolly's complex traits such as disease resistance."

See Now: Covert Team Inside Newsweek Revealed as Key Players in False Human Trafficking Lawsuit