Led by Mateja Janes Summary The Sitka Spruced project aims to create a novel capacity to increase the rates of genetic gain in the UK’s breeding programme. Selective breeding is effective for increasing yields in Sitka spruce but it takes 30 years to select and propagate improved planting stock. Sitka Spruced will develop genomic selection methods aiming to shorten the breeding process and increase the rate of yield gains more than two-fold. The proposed research will develop large-scale genotyping capacity, a genetic linkage map for Sitka spruce, and a large training set for predictive genomics model development. We will use this platform to investigate issues of genomic prediction accuracy, models for both yield and wood quality traits, genotype imputation, resistance to damaging insects. This article was published on 2024-09-02
