Dojo treemodel- adding large number of items

Question

I am trying to add a large number of items (100+) to my tree via ForestStoreModel by calling newItem in a loop. This seems to be quite slow and locks up the browser. Is there any way I can do something similar to grid's beginUpdate & endUpdate? I want to basically 'turn off' my tree, add 100 items in a batch, then 'turn on' my tree. Any ideas? Thanks!