The early cone-setting project (eCone), a mean to increase the efficiency in conifer breeding programmes

The gain from increased growth of superior planting material in Swedish forests is estimated to 1.7 billion SEK per year during the last 50-years. There is, however, a shortage of improved planting materials for Swedish forest owners. This is mainly caused by irregular cone-setting between years and the long generation time of spruces.

In fact, the long generation time is a significant bottleneck both for increased productivity and for climate change adaptation of Swedish forests.

The eCone-project will address this bottleneck by a temporal shortening of the juvenile period in trees incorporated in the spruce breeding programmes.

The project is founded on new basic research that will allow for the induction of an early cone-setting trait in the spruce breeding population, using either genome editing techniques or a transgenic approach.

Hence, we suggest experiments that will enhance forest breeding and increase our fundamental understanding of both seed- and pollen cone development.

To address the irregular cone-setting, we will utilise an ongoing fecundity field-trial run by Skogforsk to correlate differences in cone-setting frequencies among genotypes with natural sequence variation found in the early-cone setting locus.

Taken together the eCone-project will provide means for forest breeders to reduce the spruce breeding cycle from the current thirty to ten years, and secure future supply of genetically enhanced planting material for Swedish forest owners.