Genetic and Biotechnology Techniques in Evaluation and Breeding of Woody Plants

Dear Colleagues,

Woody plant germplasm, hybrid populations, and their parental-origin genetic inheritance provide basic and crucial clues for breeding forestry trees, mainly economic forests and timber forests. In recent years, genetic and genomic tools have been widely used for evaluating and breeding various tree types with different genetic behaviors. Economic forests are trees (including berry fruit trees) and shrubs cultivated primarily for producing fruits, edible oils, beverages, industrial raw materials, and spices. Timber forests are trees subject to artificial directional cultivation for industrial raw materials. Most forest trees are perennials with prolonged juvenile periods, complex genetic makeups, and typically long traditional breeding cycles. Despite these factors, research on the genetic improvement of various forest trees has made significant progress, driven by advances in biotechnology-based breeding and genomic technologies. This Special Issue focuses on research related to the evaluation and breeding of germplasm resources or hybrid populations in diverse forest trees. Studies encompassing (a) genetic identification and variation analysis, (b) genetic validation and its implications for tree improvement, (c) biotechnological approaches for trait enhancement, (d) molecular marker applications, and (e) the linkage or genomic mapping of yield-, quality-, and tolerance-related traits are particularly encouraged.

Dr. Yaqiong Wu
Dr. Chunhong Zhang
Guest Editors

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