2 research outputs found
From Conservation To Innovation Building Research Capacity For Planted Forest Development In Sarawak
The increase in global demand for wood requires increase in forest productivity. The alternative
is to farm trees in plantations composed of fast-growing species with short rotation cycle (6-8
years). The rationale is that natural forests at the most produce about 3m3/ha/yr of commercial
timber, whereas plantations can produce annually from 10m3/ha of hardwoods to 30m3/ha of
softwoods and thus, decrease the effects of human pressure on our ecosystems while increasing
the competitiveness of Sarawak‘s forest industry. This is in line with State Government‘s
aspiration to establish one million hectares of planted forests by year 2020 to meet the increasing
demand from both domestic and international markets for raw materials. It is estimated at least
30 million seedlings are required for annual planting or reforestation programmes. In this regard,
the forest genomics research will help respond to the need to develop adequate tools that enable
us to produce quality planting materials that are of faster growth, high-yield and high wood
quality, and also adapted to local conditions, so that we may achieve economic benefits of great
significance. Realizing the needs, we have centered our research on the development of tools via
biotechnological innovations for tree breeders. We have successfully developed: 1) an array of
highly informative and polymorphic DNA markers specific for identifying the genetic makeup of
two fast growing indigenous tree species, i.e. Kelampayan and Sawih; 2) the one step ‗Touchincubate-
PCR‘ approach for preparing plant tissues for high throughput genotyping, and 3) a
genomic resource database, aka CADAMOMICS (10,368 ESTs) for wood formation in
Kelampayan via high-throughput DNA sequencing. These tools will greatly facilitate the
selection of quality planting materials for planted forest development in Sarawak as well as longterm
tree improvement activities by integrating genomics into our breeding programme via
association mapping. The overall benefit of genomics application to tree improvement
programme will be in terms of greater certainty in the outcome of results, specifically the performance of the forest plantations, as well as the savings in time and cost in the production
and supply of quality planting materials
Seed Germination and DNA genotyping of Neolamarckia cadamba (Roxb.) Progenies (half-sib family)
Neolamarckia cadamba or locally known as Kelampayan is an economically and ecologically important forest tree
species. The species is an indigenous fast growing tree that gives early economic returns, within eight to ten years.
Kelampayan has been planted in plantation for commercial purposes due to its wood characteristics that are suitable
to produce different products, such as plywood and paper. In the present study, germination test was used to
determine the seed viability and to gain more information with respect to field planting value of the Kelampayan
seeds. Germination test also can provide results which can be used to compare the value of different seed lots. Fruits
of ten mother trees from the Ravens Court, Lawas, Sarawak, were processed and air-dried to collect the seeds. The
germination test was conducted on the filter paper under optimum condition and the growth rates between progenies
of different mother trees were compared. Progenies from mother tree number 00059, showed the highest
germination rate (88%) while progenies from mother tree number 00067 showed the lowest germination rate (14%).
The information on germination test can be used to predict the rate of germinating progenies from different mother
trees and to determine the planting value of seed lots to provide standardized marketing seed. For DNA genotyping,
a total of 139 progenies from the 7 selected mother trees earlier were genotyped using four SSR primers, namely
AC03, AC11, AC15 and GTG11. All 4 loci were successfully amplified and a total of 17 alleles were detected. The
value for He was highest for NCAC11 (0.7190) and lowest for NCGTG11 (0.3832)