Establishment of full-sib families in Shorea platyclados using paternity analysis: an alternative to controlled pollination

Abstract

Full-sib families are produced from artificially controlled pollination in tree breeding. This mating design is, however, very costly and logistically difficult as most tree species are large in size. With the development of molecular markers, known relationships among the offspring could be established from the maximum likelihood in paternity analysis. In this study, we successfully established full-sib families on the basis of paternity analysis of offspring derived from two Shorea platyclados seed parents from the natural forest. A total of 2,049 and 970 offspring were collected from two mother trees M01 and M06, respectively. Potential pollen donors surrounding the mother trees were sampled, specifically a total of 77 adult trees within the 10-ha plot for M01 and 28 adult trees within the 4-ha plot for M06. For mother tree M01, parentage was assigned to 45.4% of the offspring at the 95% confidence level with 59 full-sib families established. For mother tree M06, parentage was assigned to 19.9% of the offspring at the 95% confidence level with 19 full-sib families established. The establishment of full-sib families in S. platyclados enables breeding in dipterocarp tree species, once a decade-long proposition, to become more efficient in a cost-saving manner.