Evaluation of efficiency of controlled pollination based parentage analysis in a Larix gmelinii var. principis-rupprechtii Mayr. seed orchard

PLoS One. 2017 Apr 27;12(4):e0176483. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0176483. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Controlled pollination (CP) is an important tool for breeding programs to improve seed quality, as it rapidly generates desirable genotypes and maximizes genetic gains. However, few studies have evaluated the success rate of CP, especially in Larix gmelinii var. principis-rupprechtii Mayr. seed orchards. In this study, we estimated the rate of correct parentage in 257 CP progeny in an L. gmelinii var. principis-rupprechtii seed orchard from ten candidate parents using 13 microsatellites. The parentage exclusion probabilities of all combined loci in the single parent and parent pair tests were > 0.99, which was sufficient to distinguish the relatedness of the sampled individuals. Comparing the maximum likelihood-based parentage analysis results with breeding records revealed that the percentages of correctly identified maternal and paternal parents were 22.6% and 35.0% at 95% CL, respectively, suggestive of parent mislabeling and pollen contamination in the CP population. We conducted a pedigree reconstruction by identifying the expected parents and assigned maternity, paternity, and parent pairs to 176 (68.5%), 199 (77.4%), and 132 (51.4%) progeny, respectively. This study provides a reference for future selection of elite genotypes for commercial production. To increase the efficiency of CP, molecular markers should be used to correctly identify individuals in seed orchards before conducting CP.

MeSH terms

  • Breeding / methods*
  • Larix / genetics*
  • Larix / physiology*
  • Microsatellite Repeats / genetics
  • Pedigree
  • Pollination*
  • Polymorphism, Genetic
  • Seeds / genetics*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Medium and Long Scientific Research Project for Young Teachers in Beijing Forestry University (2015ZCQ-SW-02); the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (IRT13047); the Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.31370658); the Project of Beijing Gardening and Greening Bureau (CEG-2016-01-3); the Project of Hebei Science and Technology (16226309D). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.