The primary goal of this project is to complete the development of genomic-based technology to increase the speed and efficiency of selecting white pine blister rust (wpbr) resistant and climate…

The primary goal of this project is to complete the development of genomic-based technology to increase the speed and efficiency of selecting white pine blister rust (wpbr) resistant and climate adapted whitebark pine seed sources that can be used to conserve and restore populations throughout its natural range in the US and canada. The modern genomic technology is not meant to totally replace conventional phenotype-based approaches, but rather to significantly increase, by several orders of magnitude, the amount of material that can be screened per unit time and cost. There is an urgent need to have a large supply of genetically diverse, white pine blister rust resistant and climate adapted seed sources for restoration, yet the conventional approaches simply cannot identify these sources in the critically short time frame when they are needed. An indirect consequence of this limited number of appropriate seed sources is that restoration plantations might be established with too little genetic diversity leading to loss of future adaptive diversity and population inbreeding.development of applied genomic technology proceeds in three phases:phase 1, sequence the whitebark pine genome.phase 2, conduct genome wide association studies (gwas) and genotype by environment studies (GEA) to identify genetic markers that can be used in high-throughput screeningphase 3, train forest resource scientists and managers in the use of this technology.phase 1 was initiated in 2020 and will be completed in 2023. This application requests funding for phase 2 and phase 3 which will begin in late 2023 and be completed by late 2025