With the aid of a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation, University of Florida researchers are working to identify genes that regulate wood properties and disease-resistance traits in loblolly pine.

The research — to be conducted by faculty in UF’s new Genetics Institute — will benefit the $200 billion forest industry in 13 Southern states where loblolly pine is the most-planted species for commercial timber. Southern pines cover just six percent of U.S. forestland but account for 58 percent of the nation’s total wood production. In Florida, forestry is a $16 billion industry, the state’s largest agricultural commodity.

“By aggressively seeking to identify all of the major genes controlling specific wood properties and disease-resistance traits in loblolly pine, we anticipate a significant breakthrough in our understanding of a pine species that is the highest-valued crop in nine of 13 Southern states,” said Gary Peter, an associate professor of plant genomics in UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences who is leading the UF research effort to identify genes controlling wood properties.

“Wood is also a renewable energy source, and increasing productivity through genetics could help reduce our nation’s dependence on non-renewable energy,” he said.

The NSF Plant Genome Research Program grant was made to UF’s School of Forest Resources and Conservation because of the school’s long history of cooperating with the forestry industry, particularly in interdisciplinary genetic research to identify mechanisms that control productivity and health of planted pines, Peter said.

John Davis, an associate professor of forest biotechnology who is leading the UF effort to identify genes controlling disease resistance, said the research findings will reveal genetic mechanisms that help explain the long evolutionary success of pine trees. He said the research will generate an unprecedented glimpse of the genes that affect interactions among pine trees, fungi and other natural components of forest systems. The new insights are expected to enhance gene conservation efforts and society’s ability to cope with challenges such as evolving pest populations.

Dudley Huber, an associate in forest genetics and co-director of the UF pine breeding cooperative, said understanding how different genes affect the health and viability of trees in natural and breeding populations will have immediate and far-reaching benefits for tree improvement programs and should dramatically reduce testing costs and breeding cycle times.

In addition to the valuable applied benefits of this multidisciplinary research, the loblolly pine project is expected to provide significant insight into an important frontier in fundamental genetic research: the structure, function and regulation of genes that control complex traits, said Kenneth Berns, director of the UF Genetics Institute.

The researchers are collaborators with scientists at the University of California, Davis; North Carolina State University; and Texas A&M University.

Kenneth Berns, berns@mbi.ufl.edu
Chuck Woods