Development of DArT (Diversity Arrays Technology) for high-throughput genotyping of Pinus taeda and closely related species

Background Pinus (Pinaceae) is the largest existing genus of conifers, with over 100 widely recognized species. Pines are an important source of wood, paper and resins, among others. Genetic improvement of Pinus species is a challenging endeavor. Breeding cycles typically last for decades, significant changes take place in wood properties and growth patterns with the transition from the juvenile to the adult phase and most traits are multi-factorial with low heritability [1]. Genomic Selection (GS) could radically reduce the time required for completion of a cycle of genetic improvement by precluding the progeny testing phase, significantly increasing the selection efficiency relative to conventional breeding [2,3]. To put GS into practice, genome-wide, high-throughput and cost-efficient marker are needed to advance this genomics assisted breeding approach focusing purely on prediction of performance, precluding gene-trait association discovery. To this end we are developing a highthroughput DNA genotyping platform for Pinus taeda based on the genome complexity reduction DArT (Diversity Arrays Technology) technology that has been successfully developed for many plant species including some with very large and complex genomes such as wheat [4]and sugarcane [5].