Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for genomic breeding to enhance drought tolerance in coastal Douglas-fir

Funding period: 2020-2024
Lead: Jun-Jun Liu and Isabel Leal
Total GRDI funding: $179,220

This project aims to perform conventional GWAS by Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) genotyping of 1152 trees using an open-access Douglas-fir microarray assay developed by CoAdapTree at UBC and produced by Thermo Fisher. This DNA chip contains 20-30K adaptive SNPs associated with climate variables, drought resistance, cold hardiness, and Swiss Needle Cast, as well as about 1-5k neutral SNPs to estimate population structure. These SNPs detected from wild populations and validated in the breeding population will provide a basis to genotype thousands of different loci at once, in order to determine associations between quantitative phenotypes and underlying genetic variation in BC breeding populations. This project also aims to carry out complete parentage analyses through genotyping to reconstruct the full pedigree. Provincial breeders will be able to use this work to identify elite genotypes with traits relating to drought adaptation under climate change, productivity and wood quality.