Title: Technological advances in temperate hardwood tree improvement including breeding and molecular marker applications

Author: Pijut, Paula M.; Woeste, Keith E.; Vengadesan, G.

Year: 2007

Publication: In Vitro Cellular and Developmental Biology - Plant. 43: 283-303.

Abstract: Hardwood forests and plantations are an important economic resource for the forest products industry worldwide and to the international trade of lumber and logs. Hardwood trees are also planted for ecological reasons, for example, wildlife habitat, native woodland restoration, and riparian buffers. The demand for quality hardwood from tree plantations will continue to rise as the worldwide consumption of forest products increases. Tree improvement of temperate hardwoods has lagged behind that of coniferous species and hardwoods of the genera Populus and Eucalyptus. The development of marker systems has become an almost necessary complement to the classical breeding and improvement of hardwood tree populations for superior growth, form, and timber characteristics. Molecular markers are especially valuable for determining the reproductive biology and population structure of natural forests and plantations, and the identity of genes affecting quantitative traits.