Advancing palm genomics by developing a high-density battery of molecular markers for Elaeis oleifera for future downstream applications

Background Although (Elaeis guineensis) is planted on only 5% of the total world vegetable oil acreage, it accounts for more than 30% of vegetable oil produced worldwide [1]. In Brazil, the Federal Government launched a plan to boost Oil Palm production as a way to meet the biofuels market increasing demand for vegetable oil. Nevertheless, the Oil Palm expansion areas in Brazil coincide with the area of occurrence of bud rot [2], a major disease that is decimating plantations already established in the area. In a way to circumvent such problem, breeders are now using E. oleifera germplasm in Oil Palm breeding programs, generating inter-specific hybrids not only resistant to bud rot, but with higher unsaturated fatty acid content, lower height [3]. E. oleifera, however, lack the genomic resources currently available for Oil Palm [1], hampering many possible studies that could potentially help breeding. Based on the foregoing, we started a project to develop a large set of molecular markers for the species based on the DArTSeq platform [4].