Collaborative project: Induction of early flowering in poplar and apple to speed up breeding for resistance to diseases. Subproject 2

Project

Project code: 2814500610
Contract period: 01.02.2011 - 31.01.2014
Budget: 206,409 Euro
Purpose of research: Experimental development

In light of the predicted climate change, tremendous problems are expected to face in particular the forest industry and fruit tree crops in the future. However, the success of tree breeding with regard to economically important characteristics has been very limited because of the long reproduction periods of trees. A new breeding strategy was tested on poplar (Populus spp.) and apple in two projects to reduce the breeding cycle by genetic transformation with genes that induce 'early flowering'. Transgenic trees start to flower at an age of up to one year, and trees bred and released from this breeding strategy contain no foreign genes. Crossings could be performed using one year old early-flowering poplars. Molecular analyses of the F1 plants revealed the transgene-free status in 49% of the progeny. Thus, the practical application of early flowering transgenic polar for cross breeding has been shown for the first time worldwide. For apple, early flowering plants should be used for the production of disease resistant apple plants. For the first time, it was feasible to control the flowering dates and not to change the growth habit of the tree. As a result, a progeny could be produced from crosses between early flowering transgenic apple plants and the wild variety Malus robusta, being resistant to fire blight. The seedlings are currently being investigated in respect to resistance properties.

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