Poplar Biotechnologies

Poplars belong to the salicaceae family. The genus Populus is widely distributed in the Northern hemispere. Poplars exist in our landscape as extensive stands of natural populations and also as large tracts of man-made plantations. Their broad geographic range, their rapid growth and short generation time have all contributed to their economic importance. These trees are important for production of packing materials, plywood, paper pulp production, fuel, and furniture. Poplars are mainly bred for vigor, resistance to pathogens and wood quality. However, improvement of poplar through conventional breeding is a time-consuming process due to the long generation time. In addition, it needs the identification of "characters of interest" in parent lines and the possibility to perform crossings and select "elite" hybrids. Tree genetic engineering appears to offer an alternative approach that may potentially reduce the time necessary to obtain improved varieties and to confer new traits (herbicide resistance, sterility...). Poplar is considered as a model in forest biotechnological research. This is mainly due to several features that facilite cell and molecular biological studies that are rare in other woody species: - easy vegetative propagation. - rapid growth and flowering. - small size of the nuclear genome (2C = 1.1 pg). - sensivity to Agrobacterium. (Résumé d'auteur