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Somatic embryogenesis in forestry with a focus on Europe: state-of-the-art, benefits, challenges and future direction

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Abstract

Vegetative propagation of forest trees offers advantages to both tree breeders and the forest industry. This review will describe benefits, type of vegetative propagation, and its integration into breeding programmes. Of all of the different methods for vegetative propagation, only rooted cuttings and somatic embryogenesis (and the combined use of both) offer any practical methods for large-scale commercial use. However, it is very difficult to fully appreciate the overall level of activity of the research and application of somatic embryogenesis of forest trees. Publications and reports only highlight a small fraction of the ongoing work. To this end, a survey was conducted across Europe (under EU Research Infrastructure Concerted Action “Treebreedex”) to document the species involved, the state-of-the-art of somatic embryogenesis, its stage of development and its application in tree improvement programmes and to commercial forestry. The results of this survey are presented and discussed. In addition, this review presents the challenges (biological, economic, public acceptance and regulatory) and their relationships to European forestry. Finally, a strategy to promote the use of this technology is proposed.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been conducted under Research Infrastructure Concerted Action “Treebreedex” (http://treebreedex.eu, contract RICA-CT-2006-026076). The authors gratefully thank all the colleagues for their contribution to the questionnaire: Arillaga I, Aronen T, Barsukova A, Bastien C, Briza J, Budimir S, Ćalić-Dragosavac D, Capuana M, Ewald D, Fenning T, Find J, Gyulai G, Hakman I, Hazubska-Przybyl T, Högberg K-A, Krajnakova J, Kulagin D, Kuusiene S, Kvaalen H, Häggman H, Lee S, Lipavska H, Malá J, Naujoks G, Nilsen A, Palada M, Miguel C, Mihaljevic S, Misson J-P, Moncalean Guillén P, Pinto G, Raffin A, Rodriguez R, Salaj T, Szczygieł K, Tretyakova I, Tsvetkov I, Vágner M, Vieitez A, Vitaliy K, Vitamvas J, von Arnold S, Wilhelm E, Zdravković-Korać S, Ziauka J, Zoglauer K.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INRA, UR 0588, Unité Amélioration, Génétique et Physiologie Forestières, Ardon, 45075, Orléans Cedex 2, France

    Marie-Anne Lelu-Walter, Leopoldo Sanchez & Luc E. Pâques

  2. Coillte Teoranta—The Irish Forestry Board, Tree Improvement Section, Kilmacurra Park, Kilbride, County Wicklow, Ireland

    David Thompson

  3. FCBA, Genetics and Biotechnology Lab, Campus Forêt Bois de Pierroton, 71 route d’Arcachon, 33610, Cestas, France

    Luc Harvengt

  4. IMIDRA Finca El Encin, Apdo 127, 28800 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain

    Mariano Toribio

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  1. Marie-Anne Lelu-Walter
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  2. David Thompson
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  3. Luc Harvengt
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  4. Leopoldo Sanchez
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  5. Mariano Toribio
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  6. Luc E. Pâques
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Correspondence to Marie-Anne Lelu-Walter.

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Communicated by A. Abbott

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Lelu-Walter, MA., Thompson, D., Harvengt, L. et al. Somatic embryogenesis in forestry with a focus on Europe: state-of-the-art, benefits, challenges and future direction. Tree Genetics & Genomes 9, 883–899 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-013-0620-1

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